Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose Growing jumbo perch.

N.Gambler - There is quite a bit of informaton on stocking and growing some yellow perch in older posts of this forum. Try searching in the Questions & Observations and Types of Fish To Choose headings.

As a common practice, YP are often stocked as a bonus panfish in mixed, balanced, fish communities and this works okay if you just want to catch a perch once in awhile.

YP can be easily raised as the dominant panfish in midwestern and northern ponds if one starts out correctly. Typically I have found that YP as the main panfish do NOT do well in smaller ponds with LMB unless the ponds are fairly weedy. Abundant weeds will protect the smaller YP from heavy LMB predation. LMB are very predatory on YP less than 9"-10" long, thus it is difficult to maintain good numbers of YP with a constantly reproducing population of LMB.

In ponds with good weed control (few weeds) YP work best combined with a few non-reproducing predators that have smaller mouths or have limited reproduction. Once you add another minnow predator besides perch, minnows often have a difficult time maintaining good abundance, young perch become numerous, and perch growth starts to slow down.

It has been shown that large YP (9"-13") will eat quite a few fingerling sized perch during certain times of the year. I have found that a fairly high number of big perch in a small, low weed density, pond will do a lot toward controlling their own numbers.

Despite some studies that have shown YP will prey on 1.5" and smaller BG (esp during winter), YP will not grow really well on a continual diet of BG inter-mixed with a few invertebrates. YP feed and grow best on a diet dominated by soft rayed minnows, abundant larger sized invertebrates and an occassional crayfish. Feeding YP a high protein pellet food accelerates their growth.

If you want a fishery dominated by large sized YP, first stock minnows so they can become well established. Then stock fingerling or young adult or mixed sizes of YP. As an example stock minnows in spring then in fall stock YP. Your water fertility will determine how many perch to stock per acre. When the perch spawn for the first time, then you might want to stock a few nonreproducing predators such as hybrid striped bass or walleye. Smallmouth bass work okay with perch if one properly controls the SMB numbers so they do not become too abundant and eliminate the minnow supply. If you are not seeing a supply of breeder minnows each late spring then you know you have too many predators - remove some bass and or perch. Then try to re-establish some minnows and/or shiners.

I think selective harvest of the small and intermediate sized YP, in a similar way that selective harvest produces large numbers of big BG, does a lot for producing a pond with a high number of large sized, jumbo YP.

Thus if you can keep ample food available for the perch, allow only small amounts of underwater weeds(10-20%), monitor & control perch predators, and practice wise selective harvest, jumbo perch can be raised in a northern pond.