COLCHESTER, Ontario — If you could make the water off this tiny Ontario harbor as clear as glass, you'd see a nondescript bottom, mostly flat with foot-high humps and ridges of rock and rubble.

And hanging just above that bottom would be huge schools of perch, armies of the fat little fish with yellow sides and black convict stripes that many people think are the tastiest creature in fresh water.

Perch numbers have declined in western Lake Erie since the arrival 25 years ago of zebra mussels, which compete for food with baby perch. But the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources estimates the numbers of spawning-age perch in the basin at 16.5 million, up slightly from last year.

Lake Erie perch usually spawn at age 3, when they are about 8 inches long. In the last hour about 30 fish have been swung into the cooler aboard Jeff Anderson's charter boat, Fish Hound.

Anderson fishes perch in the spring out of Colchester harbor, and later in the summer he usually moves to nearby Wheatley, Ontario, to fish walleyes and steelhead.

"The perch are here all summer, but we run out of (bait) minnows usually by the end of May," Anderson said. "I'll switch to steelhead and walleyes as soon as they're here in decent numbers, usually about the middle of May."

Fishing with Anderson on this cool April morning was another charter captain, Greg Horoky, a longtime Professional Walleye Tour competitor and the only Canadian to win a PWT event.

He pointed to a small object on the southern horizon, just to the east of Big Sister Island whose treetops could be seen above the water.

"That's the Admiral Perry Monument (in Put-in-Bay, Ohio). This really is a big high-pressure system that has moved in. You can see the nuclear plant in Ohio, too, and that's 32 miles away. We don't get many days when we can see this far," Horoky said.

Anderson said he and Horoky can't figure out why they don't draw more anglers from southeastern Michigan.

"We have good walleye and steelhead fishing here right through the summer, and you don't have the big pack of boats to contend with that you get in Ohio," Horoky said.

Said Anderson, "And we're only 40, 45 minutes from Detroit, not 2� hours like if you go to Ohio. But Detroit is a market that we just haven't been able to tap."

That wasn't strictly accurate because also aboard was Rick Welch, a Detroiter who has been fishing with Anderson for several years and probably fishes 100 times a year somewhere along Ontario's Lake Erie coastline between Colchester and Leamington.

"I love it here," Welch said. "The fishing is great, and I like the variety. On the same day you can catch walleyes, steelhead, bass and perch, and if you go into Rondeau Bay you can get crappies, bluegills and pike.

"And what's so amazing is that I can drive over here in the morning, catch a bunch of fish and be back in Detroit to go to work after lunch."

Anderson uses a simple terminal-tackle rig for perch. A half-ounce bell sinker is attached to the bottom of a 2-foot monofilament leader (usually about 6-pound test). One No. 10 hook is attached to the eye of the bell sinker with a foot-long piece of monofilament. A second hook is attached to another foot-long leader about a foot above the sinker.

"We figured this rig out when we noticed that a lot of the perch we caught were puking up mayflies," he said. "We realized that they were grubbing around on the bottom getting mayfly larva out of the mud because they were barfing up a lot more mayflies and gobies than shiners.

"This sinker stirs up the mud, and the bottom hook stays right on the bottom where the fish usually are feeding. The upper hook gets attention from perch that are suspended a little above the bottom."

While small minnows are the bait, Anderson said he's convinced his success rate has increased since he started using colored hooks, usually a bright chartreuse or chartreuse and orange.

"It's not always real important, but on days when they are picky, you can see the difference," he said.