I stocked some 6-10 inch YP and some larger hybrid Bluegill the other day and they seemed pretty stressed. I acclimated them in bags for about an hour before releasing them, at which point most of the Perch and some of the Bluegill swam down to the bottom and laid there. By the next morning all but a few were gone. The few perch and Bluegill that were still laying there I assumed were dead, but swam off when I tried to retrieve them. This seemed unusual but the Bluegill seem to be doing well. I have seen a few perch cruising around. The spot where I've seen them the most is sitting just beneath the surface in a log jam. Any thoughts on how these fish reacted to being released? I'm also wondering if this is normal behavior for Perch. For those of you who have them, do you see them regularly near the surface or do they mainly stay more towards the bottom?

YP certainly are bottom oriented fish. It seems my perch are always low in the water column. Some dart to the surface to grab pellets, but immediately whirl and dive.

The sunfish in my pond spend time throughout the water column, hovering or suspending at any depth.

Why your newly release fish stayed on the bottom so long could be attributed to stress from being transported. Alternately, your pond's water quality could be radically different from the water they'd been living in.

I've seen newly released YP rest on the bottom for an hour or so, then flick their tails and scoot away when touched with a stick. Can you describe how long the fish were in transportation, what the water temps were, if they were in well oxygenated water, etc.? My hunch is that they will be fine, but I'm no expert.

I did transport a dozen tiger trout last week in not nearly enough water. The trip took an hour. I stopped twice along the way, the first time adding snow to the limited bucket and cooler volume; the second time to borrow several totes from a friend and filling them with river water. All the trout made it and are swimming in our pond today. Several were belly up at my first stop. They'd all recovered by the time I reached my friend's home.

They were transported in bags with oxygen. They were in the bags for 6 hours but looked to be in good shape when I got them to the pond. The outdoor temps that day were in the upper 50s, my pond water I Would guess was probably mid 40s. I could feel a pretty big difference in temp between the bags and the pond water. The perch were spitting up a lot of food in the bags which I assume is a sign of stress. The perch that I do see swimming around take off when spooked, their behavior just seems different than what I'd expect, but it has been a few days so I'm hoping they'll be ok.

I am suspecting that the fish were suffering from the transition. Did you acclimate them to your water quality? By this, I mean, did you add some of your pond water to the bags as the fish floated in the pond getting used to the water temperature?

I have seen this type of behavior with aquarium fish where they swim or settle straight to the bottom of the aquarium after being released from the bag. They appear to be just laying there on their side, but will move if poked or prodded.

QA,

I did acclimate by letting water into the bags gradually over the course of at least an hour. I did start letting water into the bags pretty quickly as I was concerned they might be getting low on oxygen which was probably a mistake from what I've read. Update: I've caught 2 10+ inch YP in the last week so hopefully they're doing alright. I did pull a HBG out that was covered in sores ( cotton looking), hopefully this is an isolated occurrence as I haven't seen it on any other fish.