Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose Yellow Perch

Does anyone know if yellow perch can live in a texas pond? What temperature do they live at?

I think Bob Lusk is doing some initial research with cool-water species (walleye, yellow perch and SM bass) in his own northern TX ponds. You will need to stay tuned for his results which will probably appear in the PBoss magazine. From my experience the older a yellow perch gets the less tolerant of heat it becomes.

I think the normal TX summer is too hot to long for these species to thrive, be truly successful or even survive. I understand that this 2004 TX summer has been unusually cool with not as many really hot days as normal. SMB can probably tolerate more heat then the other two cool-water species. All three have been reported from larger reservoirs in TX and neighboring states. However these larger reservoirs have an oxygenated cool water refuge for these fish to endure the intense TX summers. Typical ponds in TX do not offer the cool water refugia that contains adequate DO.

Lake Kiowa, in north Texas, near Gainesville, has yellow perch. But, there aren't many and it's too hot for them to thrive. I've found several size classes of them during electrofishing surveys, but their numbers are low, probably due to competitive populations of predators such as white bass and largemouth bass.
I have stocked walleye and smallmouth bass into a small pond on my property, but it's too early to know how they have fared. I haven't seen yellow perch anywhere else in Texas.