Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Yellow perch spawning

3/19/24 yellow perch are spawning in southwest michigan. Running about 2 weeks early in my ponds. Anyone else seeing this?

Ron, last week I caught some YP in a customers pond. 25% of the YP had already spawned. Yes, they are early this year. This is in Northern Indiana.

Yellow Perch Spawn 2024
https://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=565154#Post565154

I bet the smb will be early this year too. Just my luck they will get started and shutdown because of a cold snap. Im all set up and ready for them this year .lol.

NE Missouri and I had found one ribbon last week. Visited the pond the last few days and there are now five ribbons. The last three years I haven’t seen more than a couple of ribbons. It’s been cold the last few days, but they don’t seem to be slowing down.

none visible for me yet. Hope to see some soon! Congrats SetterGuy, hope you see more this year!

Saw a couple of ribbons very early, about 3/5. Was disappointing to see just 3. Then around 3/29 a dozen more showed up. Really early for sure! I’m not even certain if those first few were even earlier as I wasn’t really looking.

Is it that time of year again for ribbons? I was out at the property and looked around a little but didn't see any. Anybody else have stories to tell?

Not yet for us, there is still 6” of ice on the pond. We were so locked up with ice and snow this winter that I think there may be some die off as I couldn’t get enough ice cleared for sunlight.

It’s supposed to warm quite a bit this week, so we will likely finally lose our ice.

Probably a few week s out yet. I always have a weirdo early one show up any day now, then about 10-12 days later, I start seeing a few.
We started net sets for WAE last night, just heading out to start running, you guys have a good day.

We had ice out yesterday in SW Michigan. Had a more 'typical' winter in MI this year with a little below average snow but at least had cold enough weather and some late snows to allow the snowmobilers to get some action. There was opportunity for ice skating and ice fishing which was appreciated as the last 2 winters felt more like balmy spring. Fortunately while we still had some ice some family came over and helped erect a very tall light pole fitted with a double barrel LED light.

We have always had a two light setup (double stack LED) on a bull horn on a pole on the west side of the pond but there just wasn't enough light on the east side to help cover the shadows. The night time hockey players noticed this. I had been watching for a cheap used street light pole or even a hops pole. I found a guy who had a stash of used fiberglass streetlight poles. He sold the 20 footers rapidly but had 2 of the 40 footers that no one knew what to do with. I should start a new thread to share all the pictures of the 'redneck' pole moving apparatus and also of our comical efforts to try to lift this pole using manpower alone and some ropes while the heavy light was already fastened on the top.

We got it up somehow but now of course the light angle is pointing too close to the ground at the base of the pole. I have no idea how to fix that yet but now the ice is melted so it doesn't matter that much.

I didn't see any ribbons yet but look forward to seeing them. We had a fish kill right when the cold hit and we also had some heavy rains. I also saw a very late heavy algae presence in the water so algae crash may have been the culprit as well. I think since many size classes are represented here probably most/all of my remaining perch dying so maybe we won't see any ribbons at all this year. There were some very nice size ones in the mix!

I'll post a picture if I can. (i uploaded to attachment manager and hovered, clicked embed but it won't let me embed in the post, frustrating...



Funny how the predators just leave them alone! I would have thought they would be eaten by scavenger animals or even turkey vultures?

Hope others can post here when they see the perch ribbons!

Looks like you have a good representation of all size classes.

Hopefully you have a good spawn and recovery soon!!

My water yesterday Mar 14 was 50F. I should see my YP eggs this weekend Mar 15-17 in NW Ohio.

Okay today Saturday Mar 15,, I saw the first ribbon of YP eggs. Sunday water temp 2ft deep where eggs usually are is 54F and air temp is dropping today.

Today Tuesday water temp is 52F. I removed 10 egg ribbons. If your water is 50F with yellow perch, the YP should be producing egg ribbons somewhere in the pond. My experience is the YP will drop the ribbons in the shallower warmer water locations or in areas where wind has mixed warm water deeper below water transparency. YP can recognize 1F temperature difference.

I'm looking. Haven't been able to spot them yet but the wind is blowing 30-50mph and has the water stirred up a bit. Finger crossed they are "getting it done" without my supervision.

Saw our first eggs today, 3/23/25, but could have been there a day or two. NY Fingerlakes. Ice out was 3/13. Had some real warm days and water at dock is 46.6. They were in a secluded inlet which may have been even warmer the last few days.

I pulled out 5 egg ribbons today NW Ohio. Ron in central lower Michigan has had YP eggs for several days.
From an egg section count, I calculated today a 3 ft long YP ribbon has around 33,000 to 35,000 eggs.

Crazy question maybe, why you removing them?

My pond has just YP and basically no predators to maintain a high forge minnow population. I remove eggs to keep the YP population density low numbers.

I stocked 3 inch perch last spring (9 months ago). Would they be mature enough to spawn this spring?

Yes.. I have 4-5" females blowing little ribbons in tanks every year.

Very interesting, Snipe.

Are the ribbons observably fertilized?

Two questions perhaps. Are the males mature enough to fertilize at that size/age? Do the YP still manage to engage in "normal" spawning behavior in your tanks, even though that environment is a bit different than their natural environment? (Heck, I guess they might even find your tanks preferable to their normal environment?)

Yes, males are flowing at 3-4". You can't "see" they are fertilized unless you pull it up and look very close, if it has a white dot in nucleus, it has not been fertilized fully. Most ribbons have mixed fertilization that's why it's important to have plenty of males.

First 2 ribbons today for me in the pond, WT 51. March 25.

Your smb spawn year-round man, what are you talking about... :-))

Interesting. My water temp today was 40 deg F. Still had ice last week in the shady part of the pond. I am only 140 miles north of you, and about the same latitude as Ron.

Hopefully, my perch will produce some ribbons when it warms up.