Cecil - Thanks for the information.
Due to our location (Kansas) smack-dab in the middle of the country, we get even higher variability in our early spring weather than most other locales. I suspect our results would therefore be even worse than average. The females are put back in their original female only pond, and the males are either filleted or put into a holding pond for future use as brood fish.
Why do you have to remove the YP broodfish from your cages? Is there more than one mating pair per cage? Do YP guard their egg ribbons or just "fire and forget"?
The broodfish are allowed to breed in the cage with the purpose of making it easy to remove them vs. having them swimming free in the pond where they can prey on the young perch and be difficult to remove.
I put about five females to 15 males in the cage. I end up with several hundred feed trained plump perch.
Btw as said several people here that have good knowledge to share about yellow perch, but Bill Cody isn't called Dr. Perca for nothing. He's taught me everything I know about producing big yellow perch including one that came out of my pond that was 5 ounces bigger than our state record.
Another man that was indispensable for me is Bill Lynch of Marysville, Ohio that is a retired Ohio State extension agent, president of the Ohio Aquaculture Association, and a yellow perch producer.
My "unofficial" state record yellow perch. 2 lbs. 13 oz. and 16 1/4 inches.
A couple of big ones caught in the pond a couple springs ago.
Btw feed trained and pellet fed perch is the way to go if you want large fast growing yellow perch.
