Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Moved 400 male yellow perch today with pictures

I moved about 400 male perch today from their cages in the biggest pond to my former 1/10th acre trout pond today. Many of these fish I hatched myself in the perch production pond. The plan is to catch up to a dozen large gravid females via hook and line tomorrow, and move them to the same pond, to allow them to lay their egg ribbons on brush I've planted along the edge of the pond. And of course be fertilized by some of the males. Then move the egg ribbons to the perch production pond. I'll gradually thin out the males for the deep fryer over the next several months. Yum Yum fresh fish!

Two cages of male perch pulled to shore away from their original position on the pier.




One of the cages pulled up on the bank ready to dip net.




The rig I use to move fish from pond to pond. It's not fancy but it does the job.




A look at some males before release into the former trout pond.



As you can see a slight squeeze on the male perch this time of year produces milt. Sorry about the blurry picture.



Stay tuned tomorrow for pics of big female yellow perch up to 13 inches being caught and moved!

Hows the fishing in the snow Cecil?

Thanks Cecil for the pics. I like the water color. Nice male YP. Will be good to compare the size of males to females.

Thanks for showing us the pictures, Cecil.

lassig:
Based on the weather report, we cancelled the range session for today. It's overcast and in the 40's. I think Cecil will get all the fish moved before the snow hits without any problem. He's about 40 miles to the East of me.

Well I got carried away and caught and moved 20 female perch from the trophy female only perch and male only bluegill pond to the spawning pond. I didn't catch any of the biggest ones in the trophy pond though. The ones I caught and moved were only 11 to 12 inches tops I believe. I'm sure I have some 13 inch perch in the trophy pond, as I moved about 100 there up to 12 inches last spring after refilling. However, I can't be too selective as spawning is very close. Bill Cody had three egg ribbons in his pond today. Spawning has come up very,very, quickly this year.





Here's a volunteer bush on the big pond that I was going to remove anyway, which was cut up and used for the females to lay their egg ribbons on. Not sure what kind of bush it is, but it has nasty upturned thorns on it. I got poked twice! I also put a couple of pesky willows to use.



Here's a pic of one branch attached to piece of galvanized pipe to hold it in place on the bottom along the shoreline of the pond. I have these in the pond for the females to drape their egg ribbons on. They are spaced about 20 feet apart all the way around the pond.



Here's a couple of females out of the 20 I moved. Fishing was great with the fatheads I trapped right out of the same pond, or almost as good with a twister tail jig. I fished right over the side of the pier in about 9 feet of water, about a foot off the bottom. Many times the bait was hit on the way down using a slip bobber rig. The main big pond has hundreds of thousands of fatheads and a few pellets in the minnow trap produces 5 or 6 dozen in 20 minutes time. Amazing how many fatheads I can keep going without green carp! If I still had green carp they'd be gone in no time!

Aquashade. The flash distorts the color a little though.

No snow today and it wasn't too bad although the wind from the north was a little brisk.

I saw later in the day that IN got rain and not snow. Hopefully this is the last we see if snow for a while. Those are some nice perch. Makes me want to get out on Lake Michigan shortly here and get into the great spring time perch fishing that exists out there. Turkey hunting usually gets in the way of that though.

We may have got a sprinkle or so but nothing significant. It's 40.0 and sunny now which isn't anything to complain about this time of year.

Cecil,
Do you need to put those branches on the north side of the shore in direct sunlight? Do they need to be completely submerged like your pic? Any minimum depth?
Thanks
Damone

Damone,

I put them all the way around the pond, which is only 1/10th acre. About a dozen of them if I remember right. Enough of the brush needs to be submerged so they can drape eggs on it. I've found they will do it in as shallow as a couple feet of water but I've also seen them drop their eggs on the bottom in the deepest water of the pond.

Not sure about one side being better than another (I see your drift that the north side may warm up faster), but both Bill Cody and I have seen perch uses many sides of a pond. On my biggest pond one year they seem to favor the south side and another year the east side. My WAG is they may drop them on the side with the most wind action as in circulation and preferred structure or wherever a group is when they can't hold them anymore? Anyone know?

Cecil...thank you for everything...what a great post. Your water, ponds, and perch are all beautiful. Heck, I was even impressed by your spawning structure branch. Beautiful water makes everything look more appealing.

I have about 10 egg ribbons in my pond today, yesterday there were none. All of my ribbons are on the north shore in less than 2 feet of water on grass and weeds that grew last year. My water level is up so they are submerged and were obviously attractive or the most likely spot for spawning.

I want some reproduction but don't need an over load of fry. If I remove all that I see, will there almost positively be one I miss somewhere or should a guy leave one or two just to make sure you have some reproduction? Say removal of 80% of found ribbons or some such amount??

Bill Cody has to be the foremost expert on this subject but I bet Cecil could share a thought or two.

Personally my opinion would be to remove them all as there are probably some you don't see, and you only need a couple probably. On the other hand that is just a guess and Bill would be more qualified to answer.

I will PM Bill and get his attention.

BTW I goofed. The title should say 200 not 400. I had 400 females and males and about half of the fish were males. I'm getting senile in my old age.

The answer depends on several things. Depending on how big your pond is, how much additional underwater structure there is, how many fingerligs you want in the new year class, how many and what type of predators you have, and what the water temperatures do in the next 6-14 days will affect how many egg ribbons to let remain to hatch.

1. A larger pond may need more YOY perch. A small 1/4ac pond would only need 1/3 of a fully hatched egg ribbon to provide a good year class.
2. If you have underwater structrtue some females will lay eggs on it and those egg ribbons you will not see or be able to remove. YP Eggs laid on the bottom sediment will have a very poor hatching success depending on bottom conditions.
3. If you want lots of fingerlings leave one good ribbon well suspended on a branch per 1/2 ac.
4. More efficient and abundant predators such a LMB or sevearl types of predators will require more YOY and juvenile perch as forage.
5. An extended cold water spell or a decrease in water temps after the eggs are laid will cause more fungus development to occur and prevent many of the eggs in each strand from hatching. If a cold period occurs after the main eggs lying period then leave a few more eggs on branches to increase the hatching percentage. This will also be affected how old the strand was before the cold spell occurred. Older the strand was in decreasing water temps the longer it takes to hatch and more likely it will develop fungus causing more eggs in each stand/ribbon to die.

In my basically all YP pond (3/4ac), I want basically no recruitment each year because YP are my main predator and I think/hope I pellet feed the majority of my big perch. I remove every egg strand I see. So far after 10 years, I have always had a good crop each year of small perch. If I ever have a very poor year class that I check/monitor each fall, I can always buy some YOY or 1 year old good quality pellet trained perch (30-100) to suppliment the weak year class. I often do this anyway to make sure I have a good crop of pellet eating fast growing YP.

that is a cool story and nice pix too. man, i'm starting to see real quick that there are definitely a bunch of guys on this site that know what they're doing big time and you're obviously one of 'em. by the way, i LOVE the color of the water in your pond. gorgeous! good luck with your perch. looks like you're doing a great job with 'em.

Cecil I really hope you are farther from senility than you think, because I am not much younger than you are.....

I also hope I didn't hijack this post too badly but it all seemed to do with spawning or YP and I thought it may be good info posted together. This is a YP only pond just under an acre with fatheads in it and a good amount of weeds. In my situation I want a lower to moderate amount of recruitment so I will remove thge majority of the egg ribbons I see. I started with 200 fish and transferred another 100 from another pond, all YP so there will likely be a good number of ribbons I do not see as I have some weedy bottom areas that surely contain a few ribbons.

Joe,

No worries about hijacking the thread as, as far as I am concerned you didn't. Plus you have a long way to go until you hijack a thread like the rest of us.

Good luck with the perch. They are really cool fish and are great to eat too!