Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Sexing Yellow Perch

I have been considering adding a small amount of female yellow perch to the pond to see how fast they grow and how well they survive my winters.
Are they hard to sex other than during spawning, or need to be a certain size to be accurate?
Are there any links to info showing pictures on how to sex them that are similar to the excellent articles in pond boss on sexing bluegills?

I am interested in this as well for my pond. I can tell you they are an excellent cold water fish, and are much more active in the winter than most species

Sexing YP during non-spawning times is fairly difficult if one is not experienced. Even with some experience sexing during non spawning season is not 100%. Best luck for accurate sexing is during spawning season.

And I might add that you can probably still get milt to come out of the males by some gentle pressure especially as cold as your water is up there. I still have females that haven't dropped their eggs yet but it's been a cold spring.

Thanks for the info guys, I guess it's gonna be a crap shoot for someone like me without the experience, I'm gonna have to give it alot of thought, and maybe see if any of the hatcheries up here will sell female only YP.

Or you can do what I do. Put them in a cage until next spring when you should be able to sex them. Yellow perch do really well for me in a floating cage. They aren't hard to feed train in a cage either with hydrated feed if they need to be trained. Bill Cody feed trains fish in a cage all the time.

With me however I now prefer to wait until those that don't exude milt are at least 10 inches to be sure they are not tubby males that aren't sexually mature yet! I also keep all males in a separate pond!

Cecil, I'm not sure how far I want to take this experiment, I'm looking for an alternative for the pond incase the trout don't make it thru the next winter even with the improvements I will make this year.
I know YP can survive low ph and low DO much better than trout, but if I screw-up with YP they might over-run the pond.
HSB are something I definitely want to add this year as they are also suppose to be tolerant of low DO and PH, but if none of this pans out after next winter then YP will be my last option.
Maybe in the fall I could build a small cage, put in a few YP and see how they winter.
Thanks again for your input.

At least the PS's winter with no problems.

YP only spawn once a year so you wont hear very many complaints of them stunting and overpopulating. Lots of predators along with people love to eat them, so I dont think you would have a hard time controlling the population. What else do you have in the pond? SMB?

Rex it's a long story but my trout didn't make it last winter, it's too soon to know yet how they did after this winter, the ice just went out last friday when I was there.(i live 95 miles from the pond).
I put in RT, BT, and TT last spring and also added aeration but this winter being so cold the pond dropped 3ft and the aeration was only in 4ft to start so I don't think it helped much but I should know by next week.
YP will be my last option if all else fails.

I agree YP taste excellent.

You can even follow Cody's methods and use large YP as a predator to control small YP forage.

Yea Theo, if all else fails this year YP will have to be the top predator.
But I don't want to give up on the trout just yet.

Don't give up on the trout just yet AP. Tinker a little more, I think you can get your pond to hold trout year round...

I'm gonna give it one more year, if it doesn't work then I'll have a YP & PS pond.

AP, if you are interested chain pickerel would live in your pond... They will tolerate low DO and acidity. If you end up being stuck with a PS YP pond, they may be a good top end predator and you may grow some big ones...

Good idea CJ, if it comes to that I can get CP from a pond 1/2 mile from where I live.