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Perch

Introduction

Extensive stocking of the yellow perch (perca flavescens) has increased the fish's range in most North American rivers, lakes, streams and ponds. On average, perch grow only two or three inches per year.

Most perch are nine inches long and weigh less than one pound, but some lakes with sand-and rock bottoms produce perch that weigh over two pounds.

Behaviour

At night in early spring when the water temperature reaches 48ºF, females lay over 100 thousand eggs in a string over aquatic growth. Perch do not nest, nor do they protect their hatched fry. Within two weeks half of the eggs hatch, though walleyes, pickerel, bass, and northern pike eat many of the young fry. The surviving fry hide in shallow weedy waters and subsist on tiny zooplankton and insect larvae, and later they eat small fish and other perch. Perch are important forage fish; for every fifty thousand hatched fry, only ten fry will reach one year of life.

Perch travel in schools of similarly sized fish. Sometimes the males and females will travel in separate schools during parts of the year. Mature fish feed in deep water during the day, and move to the shallows to feed at dusk.

During the spring spawning run, the small feeder streams are full of mature perch ripe for the taking. Fishing during the spring spawn does not diminish the perch population according to some biologists, but rather protects the population from underdevelopment due to overcrowding (especially in Chesapeake Bay). Peak runs last from ten to fourteen days, and produce some of the best perch fishing of the year.

Perch strike hard and quickly tire, but they are one of the best-tasting freshwater fish in North America.

Spring Fishing Techniques

On ultra-light spinning equipment, tie a No.6 hook to four-pound-test line. Add a slip shot and a bobber, suspending the bait a foot from the bottom floor. Hook a live worm or minnow and cast into the weedy spawning areas. Artificial lures such as spoons, spinners, and flies catch larger perch.

During spawning season, perch will bite almost any lure, bait, or brightly coloured hook. In the summer, schools of perch move into deep water with a sand or rock bottom. To find big summer perch in twenty to fifty feet of water, slowly jig or troll a small spoon, spinner, worm, or dead minnow. Troll the area around jutting rock piles or weed beds in water twelve feet or deeper. When a school of perch is found, remember the depth and continue slowly jigging or trolling at that depth - the schools are constantly on the move. At dusk, the large perch return to the shallows to forage in water more than ten feet deep.

Schools of surface-feeding yellow perch often take flies; try a No.6 brown nymph.

Winter Fishing Techniques

In the winter, yellow perch fishing is a favourite pastime. To find the big perch, some anglers cut a string of holes from twenty-five feet of water to the shallows. Most fish are in water between fifteen and twenty feet deep, but in heavily snowed areas where little light reaches the ice, some big perch are in water only three feet deep.

Three-inch minnows or small jigs and spoons are attractive to winter perch. Using a simple ice-jigging rod, slowly jig the bait or lure one foot from the sandy bottom. Set the hook at the faintest vibration, but if a hole does not produce any more bites after fifteen minutes, move to a new hole and continue jigging at the same depth.

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