Pond Boss Forums FISH & FISHING Show off your catch Fall perch before ice.

Just thought I would share a fall perch just before ice cover. These were stocked in the fall of 2013 at 4-6". This big girl was all of 13"s all ready.

Cheers Don.

Great fish Don. That coloring is awesome!

Very nice perch. Your efforts are paying nice dividends. Good job.

Congratulations that's awesome. Have you had a successful spawn yet? I have YP but no luck getting recruitment. I have seen some ribbons in the past but never see small perch. I suspect the Jumbo strain I stocked may not be suited for natural reproduction my area. I'm thinking I should try local perch if I want them to spawn successfully.

Woodster, we would love to know about your unique strain of 'jumbo' perch. If they can survive under the ice in Wisconsin, why do you think they would not be able to produce viable eggs?

Hello.

Nice Perch.
Do you think to do new experiments with Yellow perch eggs next spring.

A+

Jumbo yellow perch from the Great lakes are often considered individuals in the 10" to 12" size range. YP of 10" to 12" are not all that big compared to bigger YP that can be raised in a well managed pond.. Jumbo perch is sometimes a word gimmick used by some fish farms to promote the sale of their perch. Examples of Lake Erie jumbo perch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-MeMc9FNZg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJi3YuSOZOo
Huge Monster Yellow Perch
It�s a matter of opinion!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4xNVHkVm5g

I am confident that your jumbo perch (YP) will produce fertile, viable eggs. I suspect that your jumbo YP eggs are hatching but the fry or fingerlings are not surviving. Lack of hatching success is a possibility.

Here is an experiment for this spring.
When you see some YP egg ribbons clip or break off a small or short section of eggs (1" to 3") long. Put the eggs in a 1 to 4 quart jar or similar container. Glass will allow best observation. If the egg cluster has white spots in it the eggs are not fertilized. Aquarium bubbler pump would help hatching process. . Plan on making making same temperature, regular water exchanges daily or every other day over the next 6 to 9 days. Allow eggs to incubate in water around 55F to 65F. In 4-8 days you should see small dark spots appear in the eggs. Dark spots are eye spots of developing fry. If eggs do not develop fungus, the cluster at hatching will gradually disintegrate. Look for what looks like small slivers of glass on the bottom of the container which are the YP fry. If you can get fry, the lack of YP recruitment in your pond is due to something other than poor quality eggs.

It is possible that the YP you bought were a graded size of perch and you bought mostly all female perch with very few males present. Male YP are smaller than females and buying one size of YP from a fish farm could bias your sex ratio of YP. If you have mostly female our our egg ribbons may not be getting well fertilized. Ideally for best fertilized egg ribbon production one want several males for each female.

Yes "Jumbo" is a marketing term, and yes my Perch came from a fish farm. The guy at the fish farm told me if the water temperature drops too low the eggs will die. He told me he collects some ribbons and brings them inside to incubate for this reason. Once they hatch and the pond water is warmer, he puts them back in the pond. There could be a lot of reasons why I'm not seeing any young Perch. I was thinking if the strain of Perch I have spawns to early the water temp may be to low. I was thinking Perch from local lakes would be more in tune with local weather.

I have only had two years with spawning Perch so far, and as far as I know zero recruitment. So I'm on a mission to make it happen. There are of course good hatches in some years and poor in others. Maybe I just need to give it time.

I did some close observation of the ribbons I saw the first year. The eggs were mostly clear and a few were white. But I never did see the eyes. Eventually (weeks later) the clusters broke up. That is why I think the eggs died.

I will bring some in this spring and see what happens. That will be a fun project. Thanks

Fertilized egg ribbons that break up after 7-10 days very likely did hatch. Colecting late stage eggs and incubating them in a container will verify the hatching occurred. When YP eggs are laid it has been tested and proved the eggs tolerate quite low water temperatures and still hatch well. This info was documented in an article in Pond Boss magazine. The info will be repeated in my upcoming PB articles about growing YP. .

Thanks Bill, I'm looking forward to your article. Like all pond projects seem to be this is a marathon not a sprint.

We have had ribbons from the spring of 2013 in our pond. We are seeing recrutment to in the spring we can catch 5-1 new 6-8" to one original stocker.





My son and I were able to release about 15 perch we raised from eggs in the shop. They were in the 2-2.5" length.

My son and I have learned so much that this year we hope to do better on numbers we can keep alive.

It is the most important thing to keep the egg ribbon cool. The cool will not hurt the development of the fry as much as to much heat will let mold race through the ribbon. Running a high dose of Methylene Blue really helps.

Next is finding food small enough for the fry to eat. Brine shrimp are not the best food for them. I think feeding as long as they can on the egg ribbon is best but you need to keep the ribbon from fungus.

Cheers Don.