What do you guys think of this:
My hatchery guy [Hofpar at NE Lake Management] says his perch spawn directly in his tanks devoid of any structure whatsoever, and he plans it this way as he can raise the fry directly in the tanks and doesn't need to seine his ponds. I thought it was hard to believe until I witnessed it for myself. I know Bruce has had similar experiences - so while I think structure can certainly help, I guess don't assume they aren't pulling spawns due to lack of structure - they seem to find a way in the examples I mentioned. Anyone else ever seen YP spawn in tanks or raceways?
Getting them to spawn in tanks and cages is fairly easy. I'm on my second year of doing the latter. The hard part is having enough and small enough zoo plankton in indoor tanks for them to feed on as soon as they are ready to eat live food. Unlike other species their mouths are too small initially to accept artificial feed.
Perhaps your supplier pumps in zooplankton rich water from a pond or he is growing live zoo plankton? If you get a cold snap the former can go bust on you as would hatching them totally outdoors. Some times there is short supply of yellow perch after a warm up and then cold temps where the zooplankton crashes and the fry starve.
It's not easy to produce zoo plankton indoors on a large scale although some are doing it with mixed success and trying different things. NCRAC is going to fund a study on it.
