Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Anyone see any dead yellow perch with the heatwave

Sometimes larger yellow perch have a hard time with high temps in the summer. I've lost a few to this in the past but not many. This year I've found one dead floater albeit it was not a really as big as the ones I have to 14 inches or more. I've actually seen some of them come to surface for feed even thought surface water temps are in the upper 80's.

Bill Cody lost several really large ones in the 15 inch range last summer or the summer before during heat wave.

Bill and I only run our diffusers at night to keep temps down for the larger yellow perch.

High of 99 today here in northeastern Indiana with at least 100 the next two days and no end in sight. Don't recall anything like this in my lifetime and I'm 54.

If I source YP, I am going with the strain from the Mid Atlantic. Not sure if they will get as large, but they are apparently far more warm water tolerant. Hopefully you guys won't lose many...

I have 650 YP in a cage that only extends 20 inches into the water. The temperature is a uniform 87.9 throughout the cage. No dead fish and still actively feeding, however they are only feeding a low light, and won't take a floating pellet nearly as well as a 400 size skinking.

No dead YP, although there was one more floating trout and one dead 15" LMB. They are still feeding, they ate at 7:30 am today. The SMB and the YP in the cages both fed on floating pellets at the same time.

Very smart thinking!

Well the world record came from New Jersey which isn't too far north of you is it?

Maybe your yellow perch are adapted to hot summers out there? Bill and I have perch that orginally came from Lake Erie 30 + generations ago.

The supplier that sells the Mid Atlantic strain is in Delaware, which borders NJ. Not sure what actual river they obtained their brood stock from though.

You guys in the Midwest are going through what we would did last year. We had 70 year olds telling us they had never seen anything like the weather last year.

It was hotter 'n heck in '85 or '86 too, I hope this summer doesn't beat it. They say '88 was bad too, but I was in So. Cal. then and missed it.

We are still catching yellow perch every so often and they look very lively and healthy. Have not seen any floaters yet which is very surprising. The water is getting very low, we have only had four rains here since march and none have been significant. I have never seen a summer like this. We are breaking records every day it seems. Still have not seen a hsb at all, not feeding or while fishing. Hope they are still around. They are saying this is by far worse than the drought of 54 here. And it is only the beginning of July!

1988 was a bad drought year and our corn produced only 89 bushels to the acre but what is worrisome is the trend that 9 of the last 10 years are the hottest on record. Looking at crop futures, the snow packs in the mountains, the glacier melts and the Chinese building one coal fired electrical plant a week may be a window into our future.