Loretta, I think if your perch are ready to lay eggs they will lay eggs regardless of if the bottom conditions are not ideal or not. However my perch are completely ignoring my branches and instead are laying them on the leaves in very shallow water. My branches are out about 6' from sure with 2' of water below the branches. Then we had the big rain yesterday and now the butt end of the branches need to be pulled back up the bank. Of the 5-6 trees I put in only one has a ribbon on it and that is about 1' out from bank in shallow water, maybe 1' or so. At least for my pond, the perch seem to want to be right in the 10-12" water range and seem to like to lay them right over the oak leaves. Next to the trees I see 4-5 new ribbons all laying right on top of leaves, some in water less than 1'.
The accidental discovery of the perch going in my big pyramid minnow trap to lay eggs might be useful for you. I put 3 styles of minnow traps out around the pond. The metal mesh minnow trap they ignored as it was in about 18" water and right on the bottom. The big pyramid trap I had them go in once and lay eggs even though the water was probably only 8-9" where they swam in the hole and then they swam out.
I had purchased another type of smaller collapsible minnow trap, made out of a green mesh cloth. The trap is rectangular and the hole is right on the small end of the trap, about 2" round hole. I set that trap in just enough water to cover it, about 12" and low and behold yesterday a new perch ribbon right in the trap. This time they went in a small hole, did the good deed, and came back out again. Amazing!
You can see various pictures of it here. crayfish trap
So, maybe any mesh bag or trap (the soft green mesh seems to be fine with them) could be staged instead of branches?
I have been trying to move the ribbons to branches to stage them up in the water column and to help with water exposure and aeration. My first ribbon is now starting to break apart and some of the eggs look more dark. But water air/water getting cold with flurries expected tomorrow so not sure if eggs go into hibernation, and then continue to maturate as waters warm up again.
another footnote... Minnow traps really help you see what is in your pond. I couldn't catch minnows last fall or this spring in my traps. Wasn't sure what to make of it..are they just not going in the traps or are they truly gone? I restocked about 8000 minnows this week Tuesday and yesterday already had minnows in all my traps. Even though I had 2 years to try to create forage base with lots of FHM, they are gone in about 6 mo once perch get going on them
