Pond Boss Forums INTRO New Forum Member Introduction Yellow Perch eggs

I wish I had lots of positive information to stock YP eggs that resulted in harvestable YP. The YP eggs when hatched as fry will provide forage for all the small fish and later food primarily for the LMB. Using YP successfully in a pond with LMB and BG is a real challenge.

To get YP to recruit and produce adult YP with LMB, one needs a heavy harvest of LMB so the predation pressure is low for the fingerling, yearling, and small adult perch - a period of about 3 yrs. However when one removes lots of bass the BG begin to quickly overpopulate. Now you are caught in a dilemma of two choices, each causing a resulting problem.

IMO the best path for growing YP as a bonus fish when LMB are present is to have a heavy harvest of the larger bass (12"+) and stock only large YP 8"+. Bass 15"-16" will easily eat 8" long YP because YP are slender bodied and live near the bottom where bass frequently hunt. YP also become sedentary or "couch potatoes" at dusk and LMB hunt well in low light conditions.

You don't have to buy the large expensive sized YP. You can buy the lower cost 4"-6" size, grow them in a cage all summer and release them as 7"-9" sizes before winter. Although if one considers their time involved in growing cage raised fish all summer, it is often cheaper to just buy the 10-20/ac large YP each year to serve as bonus fish.