Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose Trophy yellow perch

I would like to build a trophy yellow perch pond some time down the road. I would like to gain as much knowledge on the topic as I possibly can.

I have many questions such as:
how big of a pond should be constructed?
how deep?
one sex only?
YP only?
to feed or not to feed?

Thanks

Cecil Baird! Paging Cecil Baird!

One of my favorite handles on the forum! You can raise trophy YP in the presence of other fish. Cecil, Dave Willis and Bill are the resident experts on YP - but I think you can make a trophy YP pond with SMB, RES or even HSB. I should have some YP reaching the 13"+ mark this fall, and they share the pond with multiple species.

Hang on for Cecil or one of the xperts.

Personally as far as size of the pond I wouldn't build one under 0.5 acres, but if you have no choice a smaller one will do, if you go with females only and you feed pellets.



In Missouri you won't have any concerns of winterkill due to long periods of ice cover accompanied by deep snow, but really large perch can get stressed by high water temps in the summer. I would go with a minimum of 8 feet with at least 25 percent of the water at 8 feet or more. I would strongly suggest diffusion aeration to keep plenty of oxygen in the depths during summer, but only run it at night.



One sex only and females only would be the way to go if you seriously want bruiser perch. The females get the largest and grow the fastest. This would also prevent a multitude of potentially stunted perch as yellow perch are prolific spawners. You can still grow big feed trained perch in the presence of smaller perch but the smaller perch are notorious bait stealers and can get annoying.

Bill Cody (aka Dr. Perca) had both sexes but he religiously removes egg masses, and has some saugeye or walleye in the pond to prey on the offspring. He produces some dandy perch in his pond. Hopefully Bill will chime in as he is my mentor when it comes to producing trophy size yellow perch. I owe a lot of what I have learned from Bill Cody.

If you can, build two ponds: One small pond for stocking all the yellow perch you purchase from a producer, and when you can sex them in the spring (not hard to do) only put the females in your trophy pond. The males in the alternate pond you can thin from time to time as a kiddy pond or for the table. Most likely you won't get a producer to sell you only females, but it is possible you can get mature ones that you can sex at the pond edge and only plant the females in the main pond. Yellow perch sexually mature as early as 5 inches.

When I used to get my perch from a producer I would put them in cages if I couldn't sex them right away and sex them the following year. I also didn't have an extra pond for the males so I kept them in cages.

I now have a small 1/10 acre pond where I produce my own perch and feed train them at night with a belt feeder and light. But fall I have all the 5 to 7 inch perch I need.



You can do YP only, but they also do well with bluegills -- possibly male only bluegills -- if you want big bluegills in addition to the large yellow perch. I find feed trained smallies do O.K. with yellow perch, but I would discourage largemouths. Largemouths can wipe them out and intimidate panfish away from the pellets at feeding time. I had that happen even if the largemouths are feed trained.




If you want the fastest growth and ultimately large numbers of trophy perch I would feed. That way they are not dependent on the carrying capacity of your pond. My pellet fed fish are 3 to 4 years ahead of their natural feed counterparts in the area local lakes. Aquamax is a good choice.

Here's my biggest at 16 1/4 inches and 2 lbs. 13 oz. She would have shattered the state record by 5 oz. if my state would have allowed me to enter her. Feeding fish was considered an unfair advantage. Apparently my DNR doesn't know how common feeding fish in ponds is.

Thanks for the kind words TJ. Let's hope the veteran Dr. Perca (Bill Cody) checks in to give us some of his wisdom.

Cecil your full of great info! That is one giant perch! Lets talk numbers here theoretically of course, lets say 1 acre pond at 8 ft dept for 25%. trophy YP female only how many per acre? feed pellets.
Male only copper nose bluegill how many?
Smallmouth bass how many?

Or feeding fish in lakes for that matter. I know of a couple of people that feed in the nearest public lake. I wonder what would the State say in that case?

that fish is truly remarkable

Several options are available for growing large YP, although it may be difficult maintaining large or trophy YP (14"+) in southern MO (plant zone 6) due to heat stress in summer. Northern MO (plant zone 5) should be okay for raising big YP. The largest YP in my NW OH area (Great Lakes Strain) have survival problems when water temps are in the 90's. A more southern strain of YP might be able to tolerate the warm water when they get to trophy size. As far as I know, little has been done to raise trophy YP in planting zone 7. At this point I think, planting zone 6 could be the southern boundry for the northern strain of YP.

Cecil provided several good possibilities for growing big YP. Not a lot of people are reliably and consistantly doing it yet, so the concept is still in the early stages. One can initially and easily grow some big YP during 1 to 2 YP life spans, but to consistantly maintain a large population of trophy sized YP over an extended period of 10-20 years is a definate challenge.

The other aspect of this is how does one define a "trophy yellow perch pond"? What type of YP fishery does one want? Is it to consistantly (10-20%+ or 60%+) catch YP 12" and larger or to occassionally (1%-5%) catch large YP? Does one want a mixed fishery or is YP the main fish? Determining the goal and achieving the goal are the challenges.

I am curious about this heat intolerance for YP. I really do believe it is a limiting factor for several "cool water" species in more southern climates. Species like YP, TM, NP, WE and HSB all seem to stress out from heat less when they are smaller, but when they start reaching what one would consider trophy sizes, they cannot handle warm waters. I wish there was more data or research on what the cut off size for each species is... At what point do they hit that size and at what temp/DO concentration do they start to struggle. I have seen a good amount of research for HSB, but the others less so...

Agreed T, this would be an invaluable tool for us all.

Thanks but be aware I have never had one reach 16 inches since. I believe she was an anomaly just like any other fish that reaches state record proportions. Both Bill Cody and I can regularly get them to 14 to 15+ inches but for some reason that 16 inch mark is hard to reach. It's almost as if the genetics rarely allow it.

I would think a 1 acre pond with aeration could easily support several hundred large female yellow perch.

As far as coppernose I have no experience with them but I doubt they'd survive your winters anyway.

Northern Bluegill male only several hundred also.

You could probably go even higher than this but your feed bill will get expensive and you'll probably be feeding excessive macrophytes and filamentous algae. A few hundred of each would be plenty to keep your rod bouncing.

Makes you wonder about that 21" YP... Cecil, did you think about selectively breeding that one perch that topped 16" in a hope of narrowing down its obese lengthy genetics?

All I know is both Bill and I have found a few floaters in the 14 inch plus range when we get an extended heat wave although not too many. My strain is originally from Lake Erie and I believe Bill's are at least mostly from Lake Erie, so obviously they have not adapted to temps in the 80's to 90's.

There are yellow perch naturally as far south as North and South Carolina so it would make sense if they have evolved to be more temperature tolerant. CJ, I do wonder how many of these fish are brackish water fish where cooler water is found, but you would know more about that.

Another thing that causes fish to go belly up in Bill's pond is when Cecil Baird shows up. Don't ask me why but Bill can verify it. Perhaps the presence of a fish taxidermist scares them to death.

There are YP in the Potomac where I fish. The largest I have ever caught was a bit over 13" in length. From research done on shortnose sturgeon in the Potomac, they collected extensive data on water temps and DO concentrations. In the peak of summer, bottom temperatures in the Potomac top out around 88 degrees with DO levels of 5.0 mg/L. I do know that the Potomac sees its striped bass flee the river and head north up the Atlantic to New England waters. However, non migratory fish can't do that. The Potomac does have walleye up to about 8 pounds and musky up to about 30 pounds. Unless they are finding some underwater spring seeps and holding in the cooler water they release, it would appear 8 pound walleye, 30 pound musky and 13"+ YP can handle water temps to 88 degrees with DO levels of 5.0 mg/L. Albeit, these temps and DO levels may be very stressful for those large class fish. I suspect it is...

5.O mg/l is pretty darn good for 88 degrees! No doubt the moving water has something to do with that. I would think as long as the D.O. stays above 4 mg/l and the water doesn't stay at 88 F. too long the fish can just lay there and wait it out.

I'll bet they are not likely to strike though. And if they did, catch and release would be a waste of a resource as they would probably most likely expire.

Yes, I agree... The DO is very high for such warm temps, but that is due to all the water just having crashed through Great Falls and then being swirled around with the tidal movements. There is no stratification in the Potomac. Fishing for walleye, musky and perch during the warmer summer months is challenging at best. I typically switch over to bass and catfish and only fish for them in the cooler months for the very reasons you pointed out.

If anyone plans to raise YP in MO or in the southern part of plant zone 5 or zone 6, I suggest the pond be more than 8 ft deep to help maintain cooler temps, although I have no real data to verify this concept. I think a 14-16 ft pond would be more beneficial than an 8 ft deep pond for helping keep the pond a few degrees cooler esp during hotter months. Does anyone have experience and temperature records to indicate how much cooler a pond can be if there is a greater volume of deeper water? It makes sense to me if the pond bottom has more surface area exposed to the cool ground temps and receive less sunlight the water will lose heat and the temps will decrease during the period when no mixing occurs. I only run my aerator at night to help maintain cooler temps for the biggest jumbo perch especially when air temperatures are in the 90'sF. All I know is since I've been only aerating at night I lose fewer big YP during the hottest periods of smmmer.

Bill, when you say you run your aerator at night, specifically what hours? Right at sunset or do you wait a few hours say towards midnight to begin the aeration to wait for the air temp to cool some?

I have a trophy perch pond In North East Indiana, that is 2 years in the makeing, I have several female perch rangeing from 10-13 inches right now at 2 years old, also in the mix is hsb, male bluegill, and some walleye. My pond is 1 acre, I use bottom air defusers, and fish are pellet trained. I oh all my sucsess to Cecil, and especially Bill Cody. He really helped me out to obtain what I have, and will have..

Good deal SPC. Keep us posted.

Right now my night-time aeration begins at 3am and ends at 8am (5 hrs) for 3 diffusers in a 3/4 ac pond. I will test my DO concentrations in early July to see if complete mixing is occurring. If there are areas with low DO, I will increase aerator run time to 6 hrs and recheck DO concentrations.

Well I believe that 21 inch perch was legit as it was witnessed by a conservation officer. A genetic anomaly and probably a very very old fish. I was just watching Monster Quest on the History channel the other day where these types of anomalies occur in other animals.

I didn't think about using her as a broodfish as I wasn't hatching my own fish at the time. At the time I simply stocked fish and fed them like any other pond owner, which is why I was initially a little miffed that she was disqualified due to my fish being on a "feeding program." IMHO it shows ignorance if one thinks feeding fish will automatically produce record fish. Big and fast growing fish yes, but a record one automatically. Nope!

If that was the case there would be world record fish on every fish farm.