Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations planning a PB member Yellow Perch experiment

Is that one of those rare blue phase yellow perch? I assume it tasted just fine.

Thanks Bill, will that be enough time to get the air into the bottom layers. My concern is getting the leaves at the bottom, and other muck, to decompose. I may have too many fish in my little pond, another big reason I need to run aeration.

Ha! My grandkids get ahold of my phone. They take tons of selfie pictures, and always screw around with the "filters" in the camera. They must have turned on the blue filter. Either that, or my fishdog, bird dog, got ahold of this YP, and turned it blue somehow. I have to make him sit way back on the hill any more. He loves fishing more than anything.

Bottom aerating in mid-summer can be tricky especially when air temps are 90+F. The warmer the air the more tricky aeration becomes to minimize the largest perch from dying. One may have to sacrifice some anoxic deoxygenated water and organic buildup in the deepest part of the pond to keep biggest perch from 'over heating'. YP tolerate well low oxygen conditions.

Once you start aerating and you have big perch (13"-15"), you will see what I am referring to. We are still learning the various details of midsummer aeration with yellow perch when air temps are above 90F. I think the brood stock source(strain) of the perch play a big role in the upper temperature limit for each group of perch when they get old. My current strain of perch have been raised for 33 years in shallow 6 ft deep ponds that are quite warm during mid-summer. Brood stock has been hand selected for premium perch each year. I think this will help reduce heat stress.

Maybe they weren't messing with the filters on your phone? Let us know if you see another one.

Blue Perch?

Shorty, I have not seen that earlier thread on the blue perch. I thought you were joking. I obviously see you were not. I'll look closer in the future, and see if I can't find another one.
Thanks,
Jeff

Up at the pond Wednesday. Water temp still at 46. No ribbons.
Just curious, will these colder temps have a negative effect on spawn? Other than delaying it? Fish were still hitting the feed aggressively. Supposed to be in the 20s the next several nights. I was figuring it will push timing back a week or two.

I'm not sure about it being rare. A lot of the Yellow Perch I stocked for Setterguy have the cobalt blue colorings.

Here is another thread on blue yellow perch.

http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=386837

No ribbons at my pond yet, water temps are still very cool.

Perch spawn update. I picked up 100 yearling yellow perch (2016 hatch) Sunday Mar 19. Nice healthy fish direct from the pond. Females were swollen with eggs and males were oozing milt. Water temperatures ranged from 36F-38F in central Ohio March 19. Ice was on the shallow ponds a few days prior. Only a couple ponds had the first few perch egg ribbons in the areas around Columbus OH.

A local guy in NW Ohio told me today he was sure he saw a yellow perch ribbon today Mar 23 on the east shore of his 0.2 ac pond. Water temp I guess was close to 42F since we had two days of 45F-50F air temps. I will keep in contact with him for updates as to how many ribbons are showing up. Tomorrow is to be 70F and should help get the perch spawn started.

Bill, is that where you and I fished last spring?
Cody Note - Yes.

We've had more warm weather here lately. I'm going to try and get to my pond on Sunday. I am pretty sure my feeder has run empty.
I'm almost betting that I'll see some ribbons. I've got a GBH working the edges pretty hard, will they go after ribbons?

No ribbons here yet but probably getting close. 12"er from last night.

She's a beauty Clark! Er, I mean Shorty. Seriously, I hope I have some getting close to that size.

Keep us posted SetterGuy, if you have time, maybe drop in some random spawning 'devices' to see what the perch prefer (old plastic tubs, 5 gallon bucket, stone rip rap, stones arranged into a U for a simulated cavity, some branches of different types. And of course different depths, track water temp if you can remember a thermometer.

I hope to do the same.

The yellow perch eggs I mentioned above were verified with pictures as YP eggs. I did some water temperature measurements today for this Forum YP egg experiment. Pond water at 4ft deep was 48F, while the temperature probe lying on the bottom of water 12" deep where eggs are usually laid along the shore was 51.4F; 3.4F warmer. Ohio will see lots of YP egg ribbons in perch ponds this coming week.

Ribbons sighted 3//26/17. I believe I missed the first ribbons that were laid. Up at the pond this morning, for about two hours. Then back home. I have not been there for a few weeks. I found five ribbons along the north bank, which is the dam. All in the western end. Then I found two additional ribbons on the south end, near the inlet in the eastern most corner. Water temps were fairly warm. I had a reading of 58.1 degrees down by most of the ribbons, in about 10" of water just a few feet from shore. Water temp off th dock on the south west side of the pond was 54 degrees, 10' from shore, and 12" deep.

I had branches out. But not very good branches with a dense branch structure. All the ribbons were in the leaves, as pictured.

I haven't seen any yet. Would love some confirmation that I still have some yp. Will take another walk about this afternoon.

Since some of the eggs in this ribbon are brighter, does that mean they are older, or more or less likely to produce fry?

I was surprised at how warm my water temps were. They were ten degrees cooler a few weeks ago.

Brighter white eggs in the ribbon are ones not fertilized which suggests the males are fewer. When your population ages more in-pond hatched males will be present to better fertilize the eggs.

The leaves likely absorb radiant heat from the sun and make that area slightly warmer than other bottom areas.

WE HAVE RIBBONS!!!!!!!!!

last night I walked the pond and nothing, notta. It was cool yesterday and cool over night. Then this morning, 2 ribbons!! Both on the south end of the pond, exactly in the area where the first ribbons showed up last year.

Both exactly like SetterGuy, on the leaves, about 10" water, and I had various branches stages around them, some with tightly clustered smaller branches, some with larger branches and eggs were just laid on the leaves.

I could not make out any individual eggs like Setterguy can, I assume ribbon is 'too fresh'?

It amazes me that Setterguy is much further south with much warmer water temps and his ribbons and mine are so close together datewise. He said his may have been there a week or so but it seems he would beat my eggs by at least 1-2 weeks based on water temps alone.

Maybe phases of moon or number of clear cloudless nights before egg laying makes a difference?

We will be in the 50s for day time highs, will get back down to about 32 tonight. I expect more ribbons this week. Time to harvest them!

Bill C, I have a window of time to get the ribbons out before hatch right? If I take them out now as soon as they show up and store them in something and try to transplant to another private pond when I accumulate a bucket full of egg ribbons, how do I keep them viable? Or is it better to keep them in the pond in place until enough accumulate and then gather all and transfer all at the same time?

Loretta please let us know if you see ribbons soon!

DonoBBD and you folks in Minnesota, please tell us when you see your first ribbons!

Canyonck - Let the ribbons accumulate and then harvest all when you want to transplant. One option is to harvest ribbons as you see them store them in a laundry basket in the pond - then transplant. Expect ribbons to be disintegrating and hatching in 7-10 days after they are laid. Their close-up color of light amber will darken when close to hatching.

Bill, I got same ribbons from a fish farm yesterday and placed them in my pond and a friends pond. They were like wet toilet paper and were ripping apart. Ended up being a lot of short sections of eggs with the longest being maybe 8 inches or so. I had to throw them a few feet into my friends pond to get them to lay on a submerged pine and then use a longer branch to wrap them in between branches. Are the eggs pretty resilient with some handling like I did? How long until you can minnow trap them and identify there survival?