Put 250 in the pond yesterday. I hand check almost all of them.. See pics below.
The second pic is blurry, but I'm including it because of the yellow on the belly.. Ok?

The pic is blurry, but they're not pure GSF if that's what you're worried about.

Feed those fish. By any chance did they tell you how old they were?

Those HBG appear slightly stunted probably from crowding. They will grow fast if you feed them regularly.

I was just trying to find our if they really were HBG, and if so, if they looked like they were in decent shape. I'm pretty sure they're coming from a fairly crowded situation.
I'm not sure of the age. (I should have asked..)
I've got millions and millions of FHM. I mean, if it's possible to be overpopulated with FHM, my pond is close.
I've also got a feeder going, just 4 seconds a day, but the YP are not hurting the minnows, or hitting the feed that hard. Not sure what they are eating. (I never see them.)
My greatest fear with these is reproduction, although the guys at the hatchery said they are very "unlikely" to reproduce.
The second fear I have is with, biting swimmers.. I hope once they get a little larger they'll leave the swimmers alone.
The plan is to have something a bit easier for the grand kids to catch than the YP..
Thanks

HBG reproducing or the YP? If HBG, they will reproduce, however their offspring will be 90+% male and inferior to their parents. If he's talking YP, they'll very likely reproduce, especially if you have anything in the pond for them to hang their ribbons on.

I've tried to create an environment for the YP to reproduce. Sorry I wasn't clear. I am not really interested in the HBG reproducing. I haven't done a ton of research on HBG reproduction, but from what I've read, I'd prefer that they did not.
Thx

HBG certainly will reproduce, but that's out of our control for the most part. Our job is to eliminate or severely curtail recruitment. Stay on top of your vegetation issues, and do not let it get out of hand. What else besides YP are in the pond?

Tony, would you suggest he treat his YP population like you do your HBG? Similar goals for both species. Limited vegetation/limited reproduction and few top predators?

If limited recruitment for both species is the goal then I like the idea. I'm not very familiar with yoy YP...would they inhabit the same areas as yoy HBG? If so, then I can see where issues with unwanted HBG recruitment might occur also, if conditions are manipulated to favor YP recruitment. I'm very curious about this combination and would like to know more about the strategy employed.

Yeah, me too, very interested. YP can be very prolific without a top predator around. I don't have a top predator in my puddle yet and only started with 30 YP. They're offspring are caught every cast.

Going to add 50 or so SMB, and maybe a handful of HSB.
The SMB this fall. Not sure when on the HSB.
I have very little vegetation now. (The pond just finally filled this summer, construction completed last fall.) I'm over run with FHM, and BF tadpoles. I mean they are everywhere.

I've got three big cedar trees sunk in the shallow end. Four artificial trees near those. I've got several (6 or 7) gravel beds and rocky strips around the edges.

This spring, we stocked 150 RES and some GS, at the same time, we also stocked 1,200 YP. The FHM went in the year before. I have not actually seen any of the 1200 YP. But when the feeder goes off in the morning, there are some bigger splashes. 90% of the feeding though is still FHM. If I do still have 1200 YP, and they spawn next year, I'm going to need something to help thin the fry, right?

I also put in 50 crayfish this spring, and a few hundred grass shrimp earlier this summer.
I was telling the guy at the hatchery (that sold me the HBG) the same stocking sequence I just explained. He just kept warning me. He said I need to harvest some.. Well, nothing is big enough to harvest yet, but when they are, I won't have any trouble harvesting any.. (If I can catch anything.. Ha)
Thanks again for all the info.
Jeff

Caught first fish ever in this new pond..

Talking to Rex. He said it was ok to take about 200 of the YP (1,200 initial stocking) out this fall. So I guess I'll get to taste a YP!
Anyone have any good recipes??

I'm all in on needing some good perch filet batter recipes!

Setterguy, 1200 perch, wow!! 12x what I put in. Yes, that perch looks good and you will have millions of fry soon

is that a boring worm or something on the side of the perch or just debris from the water?

I'd be curious to see when you see the shrimp in the shallows. When I put mine in I figured they were eaten quickly by fish but this summer in the shallows I see hundreds of them. I see them best at night on the sandy bottom in the shallows moving around.

Does anyone recall seeing shrimp in the stomach of perch? I hear that BG, sunfish eat them but not sure if they are recognizable as a forage source for perch (or larger predators like small SMB, LMB, HSB, WE etc)

Congratulations on a great stocking plan!

I have yet to see the shrimp. I need to try the flashlight after dark.
We may have overstocked a bit, but I am running a feeder, and have four grand kids.
Unfortunately the grand kids are not pulling their share. The oldest went right from baseball to soccer. Looks like it's going to be up to me to catch them. Ha!
I'll start next week, and will take out a flashlight. I'm hoping some of the grass shrimp survived. Not a lot of weeds or any vegetation in this young pond. But lots of rock.

Edit. It's just some dirt from the bottom of the canoe. Hoping the RES are keeping the snails at bay, and no boring worms.. (Slippery little guy.)

Congrats! No turning back now.

Check Pond Boss Mag for fish recipes. Many will work with YP. I think you will need to harvest more than 200. Nice work !

Were those leeches or grubs on the pictured YP ?

Yellow perch in Missouri - that is great news. Keep us up-to-date on YP progress in your pond. Do you see them eating pellets? They come to the surface and retreat very quickly. Easiest and best time to actually see them eating pellets is when the water is 50-65F when they swim a little slower.

I'll start pulling out the back issues, and looking for recipes. Thanks.

How many should I harvest? Rex put in two different sizes. There were over a thousand of the little ones. I'm pretty sure the one pictured above is one of the larger ones. The smaller ones will be tough to fillet.

No leech or grub. Just dirt from the bottom of the canoe, when I dropped it.

I'm pretty sure they (the YP) are eating the AM 500. Pretty big splashes occasionally. They are just amazingly fast. I watch closely, just to get a glimpse of what's hitting. It happens too fast. They may actually be hitting the minnows that are hitting the feed.
I caught two yesterday, one was a bit smaller. These were the first time I'd actually seen the YP since they were stocked.
I guess I'll be catching a bunch here pretty soon. Any YouTube links on filleting these young ones?
Will that filleting board work with smaller YP?
Water temps are dropping. I jumped in yesterday, and got right back out. Pretty cold water. When do you stop feeding? When the pond freezes over?
Hopefully I'll be able to see them when it gets colder.
What I see rising right now seems more like 50 fish, not 1,200. Maybe I lost some, that never floated up..

Y.perch will slow down surface feeding when the water gets 55F dropping to 50F. Below 50F you do not need to feed them. Larger perch like you have often slow down feeding in mid summer especially in your latitude. Many of the YP could be feeding on small FHM if they are abundant. Your main feeding activity of the year will be next spring post spawn when the water is 58-72F. I basically only harvest the 9"-12" YP so each makes a nice sized fillet.

Thanks Bill. I'll be harvesting some that are a little smaller than your 9"-12".
I'll watch the water temps, on when to stop feeding.
Thanks again for the information.
I've been watching you tube videos on filleting YP. Only a few guys take out those "Y" bones that run horizontal out from above the rib cage. Do you remove them?

Don't worry, you will have NO problem catching the HBG. They're the most aggressive biters in my pond. They bite so fast it makes it hard to catch a BG or YP. I have been removing their offspring with minnow traps for several weeks and plan to remove and fillet all I can catch this weekend. Hopefully I will have the population way down by winter.

Equal parts flower and Italian bread crumbs, and garlic powder/pepper to taste. Fry in peanut or canola oil 'till golden on the outside. If the fillets are dry, dip in egg wash before dipping in the dry mix.

Thanks for the info esshup and poppy65.
I'll be trying that coating on the YP soon..
Poppy65, you are making me nervous about stocking the HBG. I was hoping they wouldn't reproduce, and if the experiment of having them in with my YP, SMB, and RES would be controlled. If it didn't work out, I thought once I had caught them, it would be over. Trapping offspring wasn't what I was hoping for. Oh well, we shall see.
I had a possum get in the live trap the other day. I've been catching all coons until now. Well he managed to Rick the trap down I to the water. When I pulled it out it had two HBG in it! I guess they were going after the possum. That is aggressive!

What do you all think of this method? Does it waste meat? Looks like I'll be harvesting 200-300 this fall.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fjuxxauWP3A

Looks good to me. I think the whole key to fileting fish, any fish, is practice and a sharp knife. I'm sure there are some methods which are faster or easier, but experience at whichever method you use counts for a lot.

I think mine must be crossing with regular BG since I stocked regular BG and somehow got a few HBG in the mix. I doubt the few HBG I ended up with would multiply this much unless they were crossing with BG. Whatever they are, nearly all look like like HBG. I see some regular BG fry also. I've caught a few of the original HBG and they are up around 1 pound. Got a scale last week and hope to weight a few Saturday.

I have a friend who fillets YPerch the same way only he uses an electric knife. I know several guys who clean LkErie walleye that way. IMO that method is pretty fast but it wastes a little more meat than the standard fillet method. He loses some meat at the tail, some in removing the rib cage, and notice there is a narrow strip of belly meat lost. My fillets have a full flap of meat where the rib cage is. When you have lots of fish and larger fish you can afford to waste some of the meat.

As an old shop teacher, you never cut towards your hands as he does in that video. You will regret that method sooner or later.

kenc, i didn't like the looks of that either. I wouldn't like my son doing it that way. But of course nothing wrong would happen to me... Hehe..

Bill, thanks for the reply. Care to share your technique? Maybe it's been posted before.

Thanks
Jeff

I would like to change this from cleaning perch to cleaning Tilapia if u guy don't mind me asking. I clean fish different ways for different fish, sometimes cleaning where only meat is left for eating and sometimes leaving the skin on (after scraping the scales off). I do this sometimes with brim and crappie. So my question here is what is the preferred way to clean a Tilapia? I have read that if the stomach and or the intestinal juices touch the meat it will harm the flavor of the meat. Anyone? I have several methods of filleting, but the fastest is using elec knife down the spine and that would cut into the stomach and intestine area. This fall I may be cleaning a lot of these fish, so what are the best or fastest way to clean without harming the flavor of the fish?

Thanks

Tracy

No worries Tracy, from my personal experience Tilapia doesn't have much flavor so intestinal juices would be a big improvement!

Sorry, I couldn't resist.... hopefully you'll hear from those who've actually hacked into one.

Biggest problem in cleaning tilapia is if you cut the large green colored gall bladder. A 11"-13" tilapia can have a gall bladder as big as a quarter. This liquid can flavor the meat so I quickly rinse the fillet when the green juice gets on the fillet. If the fillet is rinsed quickly & cleanly I have never had an bad flavored fillet. Other than the gall bladder there are no more "intestinal juices" in tilapia than other fish such as bass or BG. Other fish also have gall bladders with yellowish fluid but it is not as plentiful as in tilapia.

Jeff asks: ""Bill, thanks for the reply. Care to share your technique? Maybe it's been posted before?""

This video for filleting fish is pretty good. It shows two versions of filleting - regular knife and electric knife. I basically use the regular knife method the charter captain uses. A couple notes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Hkt3Q5y84U
A really sharp knife makes filleting look and be easy. Cutting the pin bones away from the top of the rib cage especially on larger fish of most all species will quickly dull the tip section of the fillet knife. Be prepared to resharpen your knife if you are cleaning numerous fish. Catfish do not have pin bones. The pin bones connect the fish's lateral line to the backbone allowing the fish to easily sense small vibrations in the water.

Note 1 - Notice there is a little more meat waste using the electric knife perch demo compared to the final fillet of perch with the regular knife. It is fairly tricky to cleanly remove a very thin layer of the rib cage especially if you are in a hurry cleaning lots of fish.

Note2 - For walleye from ponds and smaller lakes, you do not need to remove any red meat since Walleye from smaller waters have little if any red meat on the skin side of the fillet. For most all filleted fish, I always remove the pin bones but do not "zipper" the whole fillet as in the video for the walleye, IMO this full fillet length zippering is only needed for big lake WE. On most all fish including big lake walleye, basically all of the pin bone row stops at the end of the rib cage. I only cut a thin strip containing the pin bones from just above the rib cage.

Note3 - to hold the tail of the fillet to remove the skin I use a table fork to hold the tail tip of the fillet as I slice off the skin. My finger and nails are not the best for holding the small slippery tail tip of the fillet as the skin is sliced away.

Bill Cody, Thanks for the information on the Tilapia cleaning
Sparkie, I have several fillets of fish that are not fishy tasting, Halibut is fairly plain tasting with no fishy flavor and so are the Eldorado (Blunt nose dolphin), both are favored in in fine restaurants. I am guessing that the chef prefers to give it his personal flavoring. Maybe Tilapia falls in this same category? I don't know

Tracy

I use a townsend fish skinner for removing the rib cage. It works great and very quick. You just need to make sure you grab the big end of the rib cage and two twists done deal.

Cheers Don.

EDIT: Bill thanks for that video above. I didn't know about the zipper technique to remove that Y bone. Wonder if that would work for grass pike and musky?

Excuse my ignorance...but looked like he cleaned the fish without gutting them. Didn't think it was done that way.

Sean

Dono - Y bones in pike are different than the pin bones in most other fish. Pike family Y bones are very similar to the bundles of inter muscular bones in suckers where the bones lie in between the meat layers, 'flakes' or myomeres. Pin bones extending outward from the backbone toward the skin, are thought to be connected to the backbone; some fish specialists disagree.

Boburk- Filleting fish as in the video above gutting the fish is not necessary. Gutting a fish is usually done for fish that are left "whole" with back bone and ribs included. Fish cleaned "whole" can be skinned or scaled with skin left attached.

Guys I noticed that the pin bones are left in the perch. Are they so small no one takes them out? I have all year with a feel and cutting out a little strip.

Boburk the video has him leaving all the guts in the fish and trimming the meat off following the rib cage that holds all the goodies. I have cleaned all my large fish this way for years. The larger the rib bones the easier it is to do this way.

Mmmm walleye cheeks. They get their own pan.

Just getting back to freshwater after 50 years of salt but I clean all my fish similar to that unless they are big enough to steak. The exception is we scale them first as we like the skin attached to hold the flesh together in cooking. Scale then one cut down each side-cut out stomach bones - done. However I always cut away from my holding hand. That guy makes me nervous.

I'm going to watch the video, and get an electric knife.
Caught and cleaned 13 yesterday. I'm not good at filleting, that's for sure. I think I used a slightly different technique for each fish. Most were 8 to 9". It just doesn't seem like there are 1200 in there.
One other question. I was trying to determine sex of the YP, are the eggs like a white fat? I have cleaned a lot of LMB with yellow eggs, I was looking for eggs like those.

I finally watched the video. Very good!
I'm ordering the Rapela elec knife.. Cordless etc.
Thanks again for the link..

YP eggs are yellow too.

You may not see any eggs in the Missouri perch until November when the egg mass should be about as big as a dime or nickel. YP eggs in November of northern Great Lakes area perch will be the size of a quarter.

If I still have 1,000 of them in the pond in November, I'll still be catching them. I'll look for the egg mass then. In the mean time, how do you tell male from female?
Going to keep the feeder going until the water temp drops to 55.
Going to eat perch for the first time tonight. (Lightly spiced, and cooked on the grill.)