Bassmaster

Paul Mueller’s Prespawn Perch Pursuit

Paul Mueller knows a thing or two about northern waters. The Connecticut native and fifth-season Elite Series veteran grew up on New England waters, fishing from the bank before teaching himself how to catch bass from an old V-bottom boat. And while he’s plying the Elite Series waters in South Carolina this month, he’ll be thinking back to an old pattern first learned during the yellow perch spawn back home.

Yellow perch are native to nearly all of New England, and many parts of the Midwest, Virginia, the Carolinas and even Alabama. They’ve been a key forage species for bass where they’re found — and Mueller says they’re the first to spawn. “These perch start to move

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