Here's a pic of a female and male perch of the same age. As you can see the female is longer and heavier not just due to the ovaries. Females do indeed grow faster and reach larger size as the literature says -- at least via my observations.

Notice the eye sizes are exactly the same. For those of you that don't know, fish eyes grow at a uniform rate regardless of how fast or slow the rest of the body is growing. Stunted fish or slow growing fish tend to have what appear to be large eyes for that reason.

The same eye size affirms the fish are the same age (which I know they are).



Today I caught and moved 6 gravid females from my female only pond at the front of the property and moved them one at a time via five gallon bucket to a floating cage in the perch production pond at the back of the property. Good exercise in Mickey Mouse boots and a heavy Air Force parka and pants and going up hill to boot several hundred feed from pond to pond.

I then caught and moved 16 males from a smaller pond that has primarily males in it. All the males exuded milt with a little pressure. Once the eggs are extruded and fertilized naturally in the cage I'll remove the broodstock perch from the cage. The mesh is 1 1/4 inch mesh so any fry will have absolutely no problem exiting the cage.

All fish were caught on grubs (beemoths and butterworms) fished about a foot off the bottom with a slip bobber system. I crimped the barb down. Water depth just off the side of the pier where they were caught was about 11 feet.

I didn't know that about fish eyes. Will a stunted 3 or 4 year old fish have the same eye size as a well fed of the same age?

BTW, thanks a lot! Now I have to take calipers to the pond.

Dave:

Yup

Cecil, those are some nice looking fish. What size are they?

Yes. At least that is what they told us in fisheries class. If anyone wants to challenge it I won't have my feelings hurt.

Yeah, a little bit of a difference there.

I think they are about 11 1/2 inches and 10 inches respectfully. I didn't measure them though.

Amazing how different the barring on those fish differs from the ones in my region. It is obvious that there are major regional differences in yellow perch and not just in their coloration. Beautiful fish Cecil!

Awesome.. After i grow the new state record BG in my pond, Im turning my attention and pond into a YP pond..I love those fish and id never even heard of them until about 6 months ago..

Girl fish vs. Boy fish

Did you ever see the perch that was posted on the NANFA site with lots of bars?

Cecil, Your YP have alternating long and short bars, the little one has all long bars.

Maybe the female is a little stretched.

Nice YP CB1. A look at YP from several locations shows a good bit of local variation. As you know (for others who may not) all fish species that I know of exhibit local adaptation which may be visual (how the fish looks) or it may not be visual but rather be any of a hundred other functions. Over very long periods of time in seperate populations the local adaptation can become genetic . It is call Phenotypic plasticity which is the ability of an organism to change its phenotype in response to changes in the environment. Such plasticity in some cases expresses as several highly morphologically distinct results; in other cases, a continuous norm of reaction describes the functional interrelationship of a range of environments to a range of phenotypes (see Wiki ). Common examples are seen in Fla LMB and CNBG vs regular BG and LMB. In some instances new species are formed. In many other instances they go into the ash bend of extinction.

I couldn't have said it better.

It is my contention that Phenotypic plasticity can be found in human populations as well, case in point (not to come off sounding like Foxworthy but..) the tendancy of people that live in southern latitudes to chop up and shorten words and sentences ie, The daysr getnlonger! vs Springtime has brought about extended photoperiods. Because of hundreds of years coping with the heat our speech patterns have evolved in a way that uses the minimum number of calories while still communicating....if not for the advent of air conditioning we probably would have been reduced to a series of short grunts and facial gestures by now!

So are you saying Eric is not a true southerner heaven forbid!

alls i'm saying is.... if it walks like a duck-talks like a duck.............................................?

almost looks like a walleye