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I'm asking for other PB members to help me with an experiment.

all of you will have ice out at different dates next year and I wanted to start thinking and planning for this early. I'm still a big novice to how perch reproduce in a pond. I've read everything I can on this forum and we have very good YP experts to rely on.

My goal up to this point is to control my YP population by trying to remove eggs. I don't want predators yet as I still am enjoying the luxury of having the ability to introduce and establish several diverse strains of forage without predators. Once predators are in place I probably will let the eggs hatch at will and let populations be what nature wants them to be.

I'd told that perch like to lay eggs on branches and have put branches in my pond and they do help get the egg strands back out. But I also find that they like to lay eggs in the leaves in the shallows, next to the branches and even INSIDE my pyramid style minnow traps.

there have been several observations by folks about what side of the pond the eggs first show up on and where the majority of egg strands are left. For me it has been SW and S exclusively and I have to assume it has to do with sun exposure and thereby the water temps in the shallow but I'm not sure. My leaves fall mostly on the S, SW half of the pond so if they prefer a bed of leaves to lay eggs on that may be part of it too. Also the slope of the bottom is less gradual in those areas of the pond so they may like sneaking up out of the deep, laying eggs and sneaking back rather than the N side of pond where the slope is more like 5-6 to 1 for a ways.

So the suggestion:
1. Be ready at ice out to report where the perch first lay eggs and where the majority of the eggs are laid.

2. Record water temp when the first egg strand is laid. Perhaps water temp is not as important as weather, moonlight etc?

3. I'd really like some help trying different spawning structures to see what they like. I'd ask you try some branches with different configurations (branches with thick bloom of small twigs at end, vs a branch with only a few stout branches here and there and no smaller fill-in branches?)

4. I'll set my minnow traps out which have a set of 6" openings all around the base of the pyramid and is made of a soft mesh. They seemed to like that this spring. I also am thinking of trying some 5 gallon buckets with a 5 or 6" hole bored in the side of it to act like a 'cavity' YP are not thought to be a cavity spawner...but in the Great Lakes, how many branches can they find on the miles of sandy beach to lay their eggs in? Maybe in the Great Lakes they actually lay their eggs in the rivers that lead to the great lake and not in the lake itself? Maybe they get in a pond and get so confused that they do something completely different with their eggs anyway in a small pond like mine?

5. I'll try some buckets with a hole bored in the side of different widths and try the buckets with the top off (maybe they prefer to see the moon?) and some with closed tops (dark conditions). I'll see if a big section of PVC pipe, maybe 4-6" draws any eggs in it or on it.

If they happen to like a bucket, basket, PVC pipe etc we all learn about YP pond spawning activity AND for me, it makes it much easier to grab the bucket and remove the eggs smile

Thanks to all in advance!

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I'll try to help as long as you drop a reminder come spring '17.


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A few comments about your yellow perch spawning project.
We should learn some beneficial information from your experiment.

My experience & observations are the eggs on the bottom regardless of location are from females that were not able to affix the ribbon onto a structure. The eggs will drop randomly when ever fully extruded and when the female has been unsuccessful at affixing or 'hooking' the ribbon to a piece of some structure underwater.

Leaves on the bottom will during sunshine absorb radiant energy and make that area slightly warmer water next to the bottom. Darker bottom areas do this. YP being bottom oriented can easily sense slightly warmer water. Warmer water to the instinct of YP indicates a better place and quicker hatch for those eggs.

Many perch in the lakes find old shoreline vegetation structure to drop or drape their eggs. Remember eggs can be just randomly dropped when the female is not able to drape or snag the egg on structure. YP esp in lakes generally consist of large schools. I think these pods of young and older fish instinctively know 'better' areas to frequent during spawn season. YP in lakes will use reefs and weedy humps to place eggs. YP eggs have been found on fish nets that were anchored or fished in deep water 15-20ft.


With your current goals for YP and your fishery, I would remove every egg ribbon that you can find. There will always be a few laid deeper that you do not see. These few ribbons will provide more YP than you need since you have no predators.


Last edited by Bill Cody; 12/30/16 03:52 PM.

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Thanks for the update and ideas Bill! You are correct, I remove every strand I can find and despite that, this year I have had a good recruitment of new YOY perch. At night with a light I can see lots of young perch just laying on the bottom in the shallows.

I'll try to limit reproduction this spring at ice out as well for the same reasons. You mentioned once that adult YP will control YOY to some degree and I do wonder how many YOY my 4-5" RES and LES eat.

I also wonder what the balance is for the GSH. Do the adult YP eat the GSH eggs or GSH young? Or do the limited number of RES or GSH since they are bottom feeders pick off the GSH eggs or eat the GSH young?

I see a few schools of GSH young this summer but really the balance between GSH and YP seems pretty good based on traps, visual and angling. I catch and trap a few larger GSH and a my original YP stockers are plump and fun to catch but everything else is going well so I hate to put a big hungry group of SMB or LMB in the mix yet smile

I'll post an update when we get closer but I didn't want to miss the folks down south who seem to get ice out and perch eggs as soon as sometime in February or early March?

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This experiment might make a good story for Pond Boss magazine. Keep good notes, and let's see about a story.


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He can teach to catch fish...
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I had perch spawn for the first time last year. I noticed the ribbons on 4-18 (I keep a log book). Interestingly all the ribbons I saw were on the south side of my pond even though the structure and grade was the same in other areas. I had branches set out in several shallow water areas for them to spawn on, they chose cattails in 1 to 2 feet of water. Note these fish were just stocked that spring. I'm in eastern Wisconsin.

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All small fish species including your goldfish will eat fish eggs. Removing every YP egg ribbon you can find and you still have ample small YP lends merit to may comment above "There will always be a few (ribbons)laid deeper that you do not see. These few ribbons will provide more YP than you need since you have no predators. Number of predators of small YP has a big influence on the amount of recruitment of YP into a pond.

Sunfish of 4-5" RES and LES and most other small fish species (>5") will primarily only eat the "fry" of YP. Once they become good swimmers at 1", sunfish predation is basically nill on YP. Fish fry of 1/4"-5/8" are pretty vulnerable to sunfish predation. GSH will eat mostly newly hatched fry of YP for about 2-6 days after YP fry swim-up.

In your small pond without significant predators of the 1"-3" fish be watchful that the pond does not get too many forage fish, small foods become limiting and overall growth "hits the wall". I would remove every YP less than 4" that you catch in traps. IMO your pond will soon need a limited number of predators to maintain some sort of 'natural' predator prey balance.
Carefully watch the goldfish they can quickly overcrowd a small pond with unusable fish biomass.

Last edited by Bill Cody; 12/30/16 08:58 PM.

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This thread gives a bunch of dates for ribbon sightings in various states. I find it interesting that Colorado and Minnesota had very similar dates of first egg strand sighting. Woodster seems to have a similar date almost to the day in WI.

http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Main=33490&Number=445094#Post445094

If all of us keep notes of weather, water temp, which portion of the pond gets the eggs and the substrate eggs are laid on, in, or around I think we can really learn something.

One common theme so far is branches, but also where branches were ignored and something 'spindly' instead was used. In my pond, the first strand this year was on a very thin spiky rush or sedge. It also was the only real cover there was anywhere as I have no submerged vegetation. Woodster saw them pick cattails.

Perhaps, not too unlike humans, they prefer to do their 'duties' in private and feel more protected when they can go in between or under things?

Bill thanks for the wealth of knowledge. I never knew that the YP after 1" or so are good enough swimmers to have a chance at avoiding predation. That is good to know. You are very correct that some eggs clearly hatch even when all the visible eggs are removed as we have plenty of YOY perch smile

The good news is that my schools of hundreds of large adult goldfish are down to one small school of 20-30 adults. We had lots of summer and fall fishing parties with friends and family and took an average of 20-30 big ones out every time. Late fall we started catching smaller 3-4" goldfish along with the mature adults (this year's brood) so we'll have to keep at it till we get the breeding size ones out...(or till the SMB go in and hammer the 2-3" ones)

I wanted one more chance to grow vegetation (another reason goldfish have to go) and then try to establish FHM. UP till this time the FHM disappear in about 2 weeks as the YP(?) vacuum them up. I may have one more spring and summer to get FHM established, see if I can get another season of GSH young to the fast swimming stage, see if I can get a successful 2nd generation of LCS, evaluate my crayfish population, see if I can get some other minnow species going (found some stickleback in a seine net this fall and would love to get more going) and then add a few SMB maybe in the fall in very small numbers. I don't think I'll get sizable numbers of PK shrimp either without more vegetation/grass for them to hide in.

If you have suggestions for other structure or devices to leave out for YP spawn sites let me know. It sounds like an artificial stand of cattails would be cool to try too. I worked hard to get rid of all the cattails I had smile


Last edited by canyoncreek; 12/30/16 10:43 PM. Reason: forgot the link to the other thread
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ccreek - your pond is in a dilema. It needs more habitat / vegetation for survival of the FHM but adding more dense habitat to favor FHM will also favor goldfish & other sunfish survival. You could easily have too many gfish and sunfish that are not growing and overeating the foods. Be aware the goldfish may eventually become too abundant with a high fish biomass (standing crop) detracting from the fishery goal. To a point enough you have to renovate the whole pond and start over.

The YP are the ones severely reducing your number of FHM. YP really 'like' slow swimming smaller FHM.

Egg laying of YP is not similar to laying of eggs of many fish species and even chickens. YP egg laying takes several minutes of extruding the long ribbon of eggs as the accompanying males do the fertilization as the ribbon lengthens. During the process the female is swimming along and among structure "hoping" for the ribbon to hook onto something to help pull out and off the ribbon. I think where the eggs are finally dropped is quite haphazard and by chance.

Last edited by Bill Cody; 12/31/16 12:31 PM.

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This spring at ice out the goldfish were very hungry and even entered traps to get food. Later in the summer they would no longer go in traps. But they are pellet trained and always come to the same area at dinner time. I chum a little feed and can easily catch them with hook/line using corn or worms for bait. My goal is to get rid of the rest of the goldfish by doing lots of fishing for them early in the spring/summer. I probably won't get every one but we can get very close.

I had thought crayfish cleaned up on the vegetation but now I'm thinking goldfish. Hopefully plants will get a start this year.

With vegetation the GSH eggs should be more likely to succeed?, the PK shrimp can hide other forage may have a chance, etc.

I have had only one batch of YOY for RES and LES and their numbers remain very small. I imagine they are eating the perch fry as well.

With the YP I may not be able to re-establish FHM but then hopefully there will be young sunfish, other perch, and GSH to eat?

Perhaps this summer we'll put a few YP on the table and then introduce a non-reproducing predator.

Half the fun is learning as we go.

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I also am kicking around some ideas on making a micro pond within my pond. I don't have a good spot for a forage pond but was thinking of creating a semi-permanent netted off area for growing forage within my pond. I need to figure out how to keep fish from going over or under the boundaries while at the same time letting pond nutrients and the tiniest part of the food chain make it in to the netted off area. I can then hopefully grow forage and remove from this area as needed.

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Netting off an area to allow even fair amount of water circulation while excluding fish fry that are 1/4" to 1/2" long will be a real challenge if not almost impossible. A very small mesh (1-2mm) blocking net will soon (weeks) become clogged with various types of varying thickness of attached algae growth. Consider drawing down the pond and building an actual wall of cement blocks or plywood, etc. that extends into the sediment 6"-12". When the pond is drawn down a back hoe could expand the size7/ordepth) of the micro-pond by some digging back into the pond bank and deepening the area or 'pocket'. Then treat the micro-pond as a completely separate pond with its own aeration. Wall can be removed fairly easily by reversing the process.

Last edited by Bill Cody; 12/31/16 07:36 PM.

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I can source a large plastic water tank, 1000 gal, 1500 gal, etc. I've read on the forum of SFS doing well in a 55 gallon barrel, perhaps I can embed a 1500 gallon tank on its side in the pond with small inflow and outflow openings and appropriate mesh over the openings.

thanks Bill.

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I saw my first YP egg ribbon on March 11th last year. I ended up with over 100 ribbons in all. The first one showed up on the west side of the pond. My south end is in the shade, so I don't think it heats up as fast. I threw down a branch about every 20 yards last year. I'm not sure I'm going to put that many in this year. I also put the wrong type of branch down last year. They were too open with just a few limbs off the main section. I'm going to try cedars and plum and peach tree branches this year.
I'm figuring with that many ribbons I had to have some successful recruitment. My traps immediately fill completely with tadpoles, so I've had very little luck at really judging recruitment success.
I will be happy to keep track of dates and water temps, and the location of the ribbons.
One question, where do you all get temps? My thermometer hangs off the dock about 20" deep, and 20' from shore. Is there a standard location I should be using?
I was at the pond yesterday. Has about 1" of ice on it. And it's down about 3.5' due to the continued drought we are having. It's got to rain sometime.
Will you want to add in to the database the other species we have stocked?

Thanks for starting this thread.

Jeff

Last edited by SetterGuy; 01/01/17 10:50 AM.

9 yr old pond, 1 ac, 15' deep.
RES, YP, GS, FHM (no longer), HBG (going away), SMB, and HSB (only one seen in 5 yrs) Restocked HSB (2020) Have seen one of these.
I think that's about all I should put in my little pond.
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I guess a follow up question would be, should I be removing YP ribbons? I've got HBG, SMB, and HSB to control them. Plus don't YP cannibalize also? I run a feeder, but it's not a particularly reliable one. When it works (75% of the time) food is cleaned up in less than 30 seconds. I've been keeping a lot of YP to eat. We caught around a hundred this fall. They were a bit smaller than the ones we were catching in the spring. In the spring the larger fish were all females. In the fall there was no difference in size between males and females.

Last edited by SetterGuy; 01/01/17 11:18 AM.

9 yr old pond, 1 ac, 15' deep.
RES, YP, GS, FHM (no longer), HBG (going away), SMB, and HSB (only one seen in 5 yrs) Restocked HSB (2020) Have seen one of these.
I think that's about all I should put in my little pond.
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My 2cents. Your thermometer at the dock 20" deep is okay for a overall pond water temperature. However if you really want to check the water temperature where most of the eggs are being laid you need an indoor-outdoor thermometer with a probe attached. Most of these units have 10 ft long probes. Check / calibrate the temperatures of the dock thermometer and the in-out door thermometer to verify or determine the readings at 40, 45, 50 and 55F. Use ice in water to get the test water to your needed standard temps. We have to assume one of the thermometers is accurate or our standard. I have a quality mercury thermometer that I use as my standard.

When you know the variation of the thermometers, put the probe weighted with a fishing sinker on the spawn area bottom in late afternoon the measure the bottom water temp. Adjust the reading to match the calibration temp difference. Bottom water is the area the YP are sensing temperature differences along the shoreline. Overnight & during the day the convection currents will mix all this water to a pretty uniform temp until the afternoon sun again heats the bottom in the main spawning area.

Example of a decent digital thermometer with 10ft probe
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Taylor-Precision-Products-Digital-Indoor-Outdoor-Thermometer-1522-/381901088656?hash=item58eb142790:g:7WUAAOSwKOJYIm-v

http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-OPEN-PACKAGE-Bios-Weather-Indoor-Outdoor-Digital-Thermometer-READ-/262785425992?hash=item3d2f3b6248:g:ztsAAOSwUKxYZwjY

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Acu-Rite-Digital-Indoor-And-Outdoor-Thermometer-No-00888A2-/172165696095?hash=item2815e00a5f:g:8DMAAOSwcUBYS0mh


Last edited by Bill Cody; 01/01/17 02:23 PM.

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I'll get one. I don't think I'll ever be a true Pond Miester, but I can help a little. I've learned so much here.


9 yr old pond, 1 ac, 15' deep.
RES, YP, GS, FHM (no longer), HBG (going away), SMB, and HSB (only one seen in 5 yrs) Restocked HSB (2020) Have seen one of these.
I think that's about all I should put in my little pond.
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It will be very informative to have a few interested in YP to actually measure the bottom temperatures where YP begin spawning. I have never done that. I always assumed slightly warmer temperatures were sensed by the YP and this stimulated or indicated the best place to be laying the eggs. YP always first start laying eggs in my south-east bank that receives afternoon sun. Common sense tells me that area has the warmest bottom water as heat build up is released from the shallow water bottom shoreline area. Dark bottoms can absorb lots of radiant energy from sunshine.

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With our yellow perch I have learned that the shiners are keeping just about all our perch fry from growing up. After four years we are at 5-1 still of young 4-5" perch to our original stockers that are in the 11-13" size. Shiner minnows got a year head start on the perch spawning. We can catch 6-7" shiners on a hook and worm.

I do not know what is really limiting the young perch but I do know after 4 years I can not catch any perch minnows in the minnow traps.

We do remove all the ribbons we can and find that the north west side of the pond gets more ribbons than any other side of the pond.

Cheers Don.


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We have the same problem, though I think it is the many adult perch, the remaining few BCP, and the few WE beating up the YOY.

I started with a lot of YP minnows this spring, but if any made it to fall, I could not see them in the traps or in the schools I normally do.

A good fish fry may be what is needed to restore balance, though I am waiting for the BCP to get hammered to smithereens first. After that I am sticking with perch and walleye.

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Dono, I find it hard to understand why in your cold climate with late ice out and late warmup that the NW side of pond would have ribbons. Do you have more 'beach area' there, less shade trees, or maybe if more trees you have more brown leaves that would make the ground heat up faster on the NW side?

I have checked surface water temps and found it matched other ponds but I'll try to sample temp at the exact point the eggs are on the bottom. I expected my egg ribbons to show up on the branches in 20-24" of water but found that the branches were ignored and the eggs strands actually went very shallow, maybe 10-12" of water or less on the bed of leaves. In fact where I had a few stands of 'sedges' and the eggs were intertwined in the spikes the water was very shallow, maybe 8" and they didn't mind going there to lay eggs.


I'm curious as to why I don't have more YP young since I've had had 2 spawns, the first a very limited spawn due to just stocking and the stockers had a few large female YP egg laden at the time of stocking. I saw no ribbons that year. The 2nd year I removed all ribbons but had plenty that must have made it. I too wonder if my GSH are helping keep things in check as they are biting hooks at about 4-5" size.

To me that would be ideal since my GSH (and maybe RES) are controlling YP YOY, and hopefully I can grow out a generation or 2 of adults without a predator. Keep diversifying forage, then when I have plenty of egg laying adult YP and a few other sizes in the 'ladder' I can introduce the predator that will take out the GSH of all sizes except the adults maybe and help control YP.


SetterGuy, I think there will be a bigger market in the future for YP in the states in the middle of the North/south extreme and then more call for them even in the southern states. If you get good at YP and can help source them to others south of you that may be a great thing. Who knows perhaps northern perch can learn to adapt to warmer water temps over successive generations just like saltwater adapt to fresh, etc. They are a great fish to start with in your pond as they are hardy, prolific reproducers, able to be pellet trained when young, fun/easy for kids to catch, help control crayfish populations, and are one of the more sought after fish to eat even in the Great Lake states where they are readily available in restaurants during the 'in season'.

I'm not sure why they haven't caught on as a fish farm target as they bring a hefty price when on the menu in our local restaurants.

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Dono - I see a couple options to help your lack of recruitment.

1. allow more YP ribbons to hatch in the pond. If the ribbons are not draped off the bottom - see to it that happens.

2. It is not all bad that recruitment is low for your needs. A significant number of YOY perch will not learn to utilize pellets. To compensate for harvest of YP get more every year or two from your supplier. Considering all factors, the price for pellet trained farm raised, mid-sized stocker perch is a very good investment. You are fortunate that you have a YP production grower where you can purchase pellet trained YP that are well habituated to pellets. Restocking these YP will insure your YP fishery is the best it can be with fast growing, harvestable high quality YP.

Last edited by Bill Cody; 01/10/17 01:42 PM.

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I hate to ask stupid questions, but... I'm curious as to why would you remove YP ribbons? I assume just to avoid overpopulation and stunted fish. From what the posts above indicate, it seems like overproduction isn't a problem.
Are there other reasons why you would remove the ribbons? I was seeing schools of very small fish right up until winter. I couldn't get any to trap due to a definite overpopulation of bullfrog tadpoles. Every trap is packed with them in no time. So, the schools of small fish I'm looking at could be anything. FHM, RES, SMB, GSH, or YP. (I hope my HBG aren't reproducing at to high of a rate.
My pond is new. I'm sure it'll evolve over time. I'd like to keep YP as my most numerous fish, and have them in the 9" range. I'm kind of just waiting to see what happens.


9 yr old pond, 1 ac, 15' deep.
RES, YP, GS, FHM (no longer), HBG (going away), SMB, and HSB (only one seen in 5 yrs) Restocked HSB (2020) Have seen one of these.
I think that's about all I should put in my little pond.
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Removing yellow perch ribbons is for population control - management. The amount of population control needed will depend on species of predator and number of predators.

If you want to sample small fish that do not go into a wire mesh minnow trap consider buying a standard drop or lift net and your cord attached to a 5-7ft pole and baiting it with bread. See page 3 in the link.
http://www.douglasnets.com/search.php?mode=search&page=1

Or better yet invest in a 20-50ft minnow seine. You will be amazed at what you will catch. Use his: for more lengths Click Here. the 1/4" mesh is a pretty standard minnow seine.
http://www.douglasnets.com/home.php?cat=6

Last edited by Bill Cody; 01/10/17 04:14 PM.

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SettlerGuy, your goal for a yellow perch pond is the same as mine. Only thing I was not expecting was how well the shiners ate up the perch minnows. One year might not get many shiners the next we will have millions on to of millions. Not sure if you have seen the video from this year. It was a very good year for common shiners in our pond.
The crickets are loud. This is like this around the north shore just west of the waterfall.

I think the ribbons are laid on the north west side of the pond because it is the first to see the sun in the morning and low wind. Only time that side of the pond sees the wind wave action is if we have an east or south east wind.

I do agree Bill, leave what I have going on with the limited recruitment and just add 100 pellet trained every year or 2.

Last edited by DonoBBD; 01/10/17 04:19 PM.

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7/8th of an acre, Perch only pond, Ontario, Canada.
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