A to Q1. If think if one puts a pencil to cost or raising perch using minnows vs using high protein pellets such as Aquamax the overall best way is to use pellets. One of the reasons is because pellets are what commercial YP growers use instead of minnows. So ideally for most production one would use primarily pellets and supplement with minnows which is how I do it. This whole topic cycles back to my original question of how much production do you expect or want realistically for 1.5 - 2 ac? Once I know how many perch you want to harvest, use or eat per year then we can better fine tune how to best grow that many fish annually.
A to Q2. We can advise how many to harvest but that is based on how the fishery is managed or how one wants to grow the fish. Numerous variables enter into this equation: final size of the pond, with pellets, without pellets, how many pellets, supplemental minnows, existing minnows, type of minnnows/shiners, other predators, natural pond fertility, pond alkalinity, water clarity, amount of organic and inorganic suspended detritus versus phytoplankton, amount of biofilm (periphyton), degree or amount of aeration, amount of submerged / emergent vegetation and amount of predation that occurs.
Depending on the above variables the harvest can be somewhere from a low of 20-30 lbs/ac to a high of 110-150 lbs/ac. Estimates were from my 3 articles about raising YP in ponds for Farm Pond Harvest Magazine. New updated articles about YP are in prepreation for Pond Boss magazine for hopefully 2014. For reference, average standard weight of YP: 8"= 0.26lb, 10"=0.5lb, 12"=0.95lb. 100 lbs of 8" YP is about 400 fish/ac. 2ac = 800 8" perch. That is a lot of angling and perch to eat each year. I harvest around 30-40 YP each year from my 0.6ac pond (48-64/ac).
How many YP are stocked initially doesn't really have much to do with the long term harvest rate because after the first YP spawn, the potential of full carrying capacity is "born" or hatched. How many of those hatchlings survive is determined by all the variables in the above paragraph.
Last edited by Bill Cody; 10/04/13 08:26 PM.
