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Perry Lake Fishing Report

Updated Fri, Oct 23, 2026 from live gauge and weather data

Kansas' crappie college: timber-lined Delaware River water where the state learns to spider-rig, plus white bass runs and heavyweight flatheads.

4/5
Good. Solid day ahead.Stable-to-falling pressure and workable wind line things up.
Water temp
~55 F est.
Air / High
74 / 74 F
Wind
S 12 mph

Sources: Open-Meteo, solunar calculated for these coordinates.

Satellite view
Friday
23
October 2026

Today's Fishing Report

Generated this morning from live readings: gauge, weather model, sun and moon. A fresh report is published here every morning.

4/5Good. Solid day ahead.Stable-to-falling pressure and workable wind line things up.

Perry Lake feels the season turning: shorter days, grouping fish. Today brings clear skies, wind S around 12 mph, falling pressure near 1017 hPa and a high of 74. Water sits around 55 F for the season (estimated). With the waxing gibbous, the solunar majors run 9:58 AM-11:58 AM and 10:27 PM-12:27 AM: the windows to build the day around.

The plan, species by species

WalleyeExcellent

Spring: post-spawn fish scatter and can be slow for a couple of weeks. Fall: one of the best windows, with minnows on jigs and three-way rigs as the water cools toward ice-up.

Northern pikeExcellent

The best band for pike: right after ice-out they move into flooded vegetated shallows to spawn, and they feed actively again as the water cools in fall.

White bassGood

The spring run happens in this band: tributaries, shoals and the upper ends of reservoirs as the water reaches about 55Β°F.

CrappieGood

Pre-spawn fish move toward shallow coves, and Iowa DNR points to wading as an effective way to reach them in spring; minnows or small jigs under a float.

Tomorrow: Similar at 75 F. The solunar majors shift about 50 minutes later.Next report: Sat, Oct 24, 6:30 AMHow this report is made β†’

Before you go

Kansas requires a fishing licence from age 16, from $27.50 for residents. What a Kansas licence costs and where to buy it β†’

Chasing walleye here? Check the size and bag limits with KDWP before you keep anything. The season dates for Kansas, read off the agency, are on the Kansas seasons page.

Water and weather

Live readings.

No live gauge on this water

Conditions here are modeled from weather, season and the nearest stations. Water readings appear when a USGS gauge is available.

304050607080JanMarMayJulSepNovOct, ~55 F now

Right now

Latest readings

Air temp74 F
High / Low74 / 53 F
WindS 12-20 mph
Pressure1017.2 hPa, falling
Sky / Rain3% cloud, 1%
Sunrise / Sunset07:39 / 18:31
MoonWaxing Gibbous, 91%
Water temp (seasonal)~55 F est.

Bite planner

Hour-by-hour bite forecast for today. Tap a bar to see why.

5 AM8 AM11 AM2 PM5 PM8 PMsunrisesunsetPRIMEPRIME

Which day to fish Perry Lake this week

Today is the pick of the week on Perry Lake, at 4 out of 5.

Best day this week: today, Oct 23 β€” good at 4/5, falling pressure, usually the best window of a week.

Today, Oct 23 β€” Good

Stable-to-falling pressure and workable wind line things up.

Solunar majors
9:58 AM-11:58 AM and 10:27 PM-12:27 AM
Minor period
4:21 AM-5:21 AM
Sun
07:39 to 18:31
Moon
Waxing Gibbous, 91% lit
Sky and wind
Overcast, 12 mph
Rain chance
1%

Forecast-based scores, less reliable further out: how the score is built.

Species guide

The species that matter on Perry Lake: seasons, structure and how to fish each one. Today's ratings live in the report above.

Walleye illustration

Walleye

Best: spring and late fall, around dawn, dusk and night

A cool-water perch of large lakes, reservoirs and rivers whose reflective eyes are built for low light, so it feeds most at night and in murky water. The Missouri Department of Conservation ranks it among the continent's most important freshwater game fish. Spring: post-spawn fish scatter and can be slow for a couple of weeks. Fall: one of the best windows, with minnows on jigs and three-way rigs as the water cools toward ice-up.

White bass illustration

White bass

Best: the spring run up the tributaries, then summer surface schools

A silvery temperate bass of rivers and large reservoirs, also called sand bass, that schools in open water after shad and runs up tributaries to spawn in early spring. The spring run happens in this band: tributaries, shoals and the upper ends of reservoirs as the water reaches about 55Β°F.

Northern pike illustration

Northern pike

Best: cool water, from ice-out through spring, in fall and under the ice

A long, duck-billed predator of weedy lakes, slow rivers and backwaters that ambushes fish from vegetation. Wisconsin DNR points out that, unlike most of the state's common game fish, pike do their best feeding in cool water. The best band for pike: right after ice-out they move into flooded vegetated shallows to spawn, and they feed actively again as the water cools in fall.

Crappie illustration

Crappie

Best: the spring spawn; summer around docks, brush and the thermocline

Two slab-sided panfish, the white crappie and the black crappie, that gather around submerged timber, brush piles, docks and bridge pilings in lakes, reservoirs and slow river backwaters. Texas Parks and Wildlife counts crappie as the state's most popular panfish. Pre-spawn fish move toward shallow coves, and Iowa DNR points to wading as an effective way to reach them in spring; minnows or small jigs under a float.

When to come: the Perry Lake calendar

Activity by species and month, and how the water warms through the year. Tap any cell.

Species activity by month

1 = slow, 5 = peak. Current month highlighted.

J
F
M
A
M
J
J
A
S
O
N
D
Walleye
White bass
Northern pike
Crappie
SlowPeak

Water temperature through the year

Typical surface temperature for this water type; today is around 55 F (estimated, not a reading).

304050607080JanMarMayJulSepNovOct, ~55 F now

Angler reports

Real reports from real anglers, reviewed before publishing. The water log below tracks each day automatically.

No angler reports yet this weekBe the first: your report helps every angler who checks Perry Lake today, and we feature the best catch of the week.

Water log, last days

Auto-logged from live data
Thu, Oct 22

3/5 Fair. Fish the windows. A steady pattern: dawn and dusk carry the day. Walleye led the card at good. High of 74 F, wind to 8 mph.

Wed, Oct 21

3/5 Fair. Fish the windows. A steady pattern: dawn and dusk carry the day. Walleye led the card at good. High of 74 F, wind to 7 mph.

Tue, Oct 20

3/5 Fair. Fish the windows. A steady pattern: dawn and dusk carry the day. Walleye led the card at good. High of 69 F, wind to 10 mph.

Where roughly, what depth, what bait. Skip anything you want to keep secret.
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Before you go

License

Kansas requires a valid fishing license for adults. Buy online from the state agency; one-day options exist for visitors.

Regulations

Kansas license. Crappie 20/day, 10-inch typical: check KDWP. Flathead: live-bait rules apply.

Access

Rock Creek, Slough Creek, Longview, Old Town Corps ramps; Perry SP.

About this water

11,150 acres on the Delaware River, Jefferson County, KS. The crappie flagship of the Kansas Corps chain.

Fishing Perry Lake: the full guide

The crappie classroom

Perry's flooded timber and KDWP's aggressive brush program built the state's signature crappie fishery: fish every month, techniques on rotation (dipping wood in spring, spider-rigging flats in summer, chasing channel schools in winter), and enough 12-inch-plus fish to keep the fillet tables busy. If Kansas crappie fishing has a home campus, it is Perry.

Timber tactics by season

Spring floods push slabs into the buckbrush (April's jig-dipping festival): summer schools suspend off the channel timber at 15-20 ft (spider rigs and pushed minnows): fall re-runs the shallows briefly: winter stacks fish in the Delaware River channel's deep bends where vertical jigging fills quiet-day coolers.

The supporting rotation

White bass run the Delaware arm each April (jig the riffle mouths at Valley Falls' end), wipers crash summer shad on the main lake, and the flathead culture runs serious: limb-lines and live-bait rods bending to 50-pounders in the timbered river channel. Largemouth work the same wood the crappie use: a jig pitched between rigging sessions pays.

Working Perry

The lake stains after rain (Delaware mud) and clears slowly: adjust jig colors darker with the water. Corps parks ramp all shores: Rock Creek and Slough Creek anchor the crappie fleet. Summer weekends bring Topeka's traffic: the timbered arms absorb it better than the open water.

Common questions

When is the crappie bite at Perry?

April in the flooded brush is the festival: but the deep-timber summer rig bite and the winter channel stack keep limits realistic all year. Watch the lake's stain after rains: darker water, darker jigs.

How big do Perry flatheads get?

Fifty-pound fish come off the timbered channel every summer: live green sunfish after dark. It is one of the state's premier big-cat waters, quietly.

Is fishing good at Perry Lake right now?

Check the daily report at the top of this page: it is regenerated every morning from live data. Today's read: Good. Solid day ahead. Stable-to-falling pressure and workable wind line things up.

Nearby waters

Clinton Lake15 miPomona Lake33 miHillsdale Lake42 miMelvern Lake46 miSmithville Lake49 miCottonwood River80 mi

Where this page's numbers come from

Weather and pressure
Open-Meteo forecast model
Queried at 39.1170, -95.4170 in this water's own timezone. A model, not an observation.
Moon and solunar windows
Calculated on this site
Astronomical calculation from these coordinates and the date, not a third-party feed. How much weight it deserves.
The written guide on this page
Pablo Ruiz Quintero
How this page was made. The daily report is computed by our scoring engine from live readings; nobody types it. The written guide was drafted with AI assistance. Unlike our newer pages, it does not yet list the official pages its facts were checked against: that audit is under way, and anything it cannot verify will be taken out. Pablo Ruiz Quintero sets every guideline, the data-verification system and the minimum standards a page must meet to be published, reviews page structure and approves what goes live; the responsibility is his, and the AI carries out the work. We work this way because it is how one person can keep every page current with named sources. Errors are published in the verification log; the full policy is in the editorial policy.

Readings refresh on a 30-minute window. The full method, with every figure and its source, is on how our reports are made. Something wrong here? Tell us and it goes in the log with the date.