Thanks for the update and ideas Bill! You are correct, I remove every strand I can find and despite that, this year I have had a good recruitment of new YOY perch. At night with a light I can see lots of young perch just laying on the bottom in the shallows.
I'll try to limit reproduction this spring at ice out as well for the same reasons. You mentioned once that adult YP will control YOY to some degree and I do wonder how many YOY my 4-5" RES and LES eat.
I also wonder what the balance is for the GSH. Do the adult YP eat the GSH eggs or GSH young? Or do the limited number of RES or GSH since they are bottom feeders pick off the GSH eggs or eat the GSH young?
I see a few schools of GSH young this summer but really the balance between GSH and YP seems pretty good based on traps, visual and angling. I catch and trap a few larger GSH and a my original YP stockers are plump and fun to catch but everything else is going well so I hate to put a big hungry group of SMB or LMB in the mix yet
I'll post an update when we get closer but I didn't want to miss the folks down south who seem to get ice out and perch eggs as soon as sometime in February or early March?
