Pond Boss Forums Thread Like Summary - Best food choice for yellow perch and RES

I've looked back a few pages and am not seeing much specific to feeding YP. I'll purchase whatever food is recommended, I have several stores within 100mi (most Purina)..
I like the "idea" of floating but that may not be best for RES or YP, I'm guessing??
Suggestions?

Stressless - pellet feeding test is still ongoing. The oldest YP 2016 yr class will be 7yr old in April 2022, second group will be 6yr old, all other female YP will be 5 yr old in April 2022. No recruitment as occurred in three years so I did a pretty good job of selecting just female perch for the study. I had 2 deaths in July 2021 that were 13.5"+ that I think were from the 2018 yr class as the youngest test group. I have not sampled by angling any of the YP to prevent hook smart fish. Since I had two deaths in 2021, I now plan to catch a few in 2022 for a size weight sample. I might sacrifice a couple of them if Optimal wants a fat content weight, liver color, etc. IMO I think the study should continue for at least another 2 years. One of my goals is to see if pellet fed YP will live 9-10 years.

Joe,
My perch attack the Optimal brand fish food like it is their last meal before meeting their demise. They are not fussy on pellet size, just love the taste. I think optimal fish food has mastered the art of finding the right ingredients and the correct way the oil and smell dissipates from the pellet after it starts getting wet in the water. The nice thing is that they have lots of choices and ship rapidly to your door for no extra cost. Go to their webpage and give them a try.

Bill C. - how'd the test feeds for you perch ponds turn out? If you posted the reslts in the different thread perhaps you could add that link?

FishinR - I also am a novice at examining otoliths. I have removed several otoliths but never attempted looking at any of them. Removal can be a little tricky at least for me. Trained people do otolith extraction of 1"-2" fish. I would really like to see that one performed. Lusk should produce a step by step article for the process of extracting otoliths from several fish species. Then do an article step wise about examining the otoliths. Big Bump to the PBoss editor. Get 'er done.

If one would do 50 to 100 from several species, removal would seem to be rand look relatively easy. But if you don't know what you are doing,,, it is not quite so easy. I equate it to playing the piano or an instrument. If you know how it is EASY. If you don't how it seems pretty difficult. "Practice makes perfect". I tend to have a hard time locating the otolith chamber.

I know my perch habits well enough after years of working with them. So for the pellet feeding study, I used 3 obvious age classes of known age FEMALE perch. So I can monitor the ages of the YP basically by size.
Mixes of males and females will grow at different rates. Thus one is not sure of the age class just by looking at and measuring the fish.

It can be done but having the proper equipment to do it is tougher than one may think. We pull otoliths from WAE every year for age study. I've done it with 2 perch about 5" long and it's a job. It's very easy to destroy the otolith if you haven't had some training.
They are dried and wiped clean, then set in a small receptacle that resin is poured into. When it sets hard the mold is sawed in half through the otolith. The cut is cleaned and placed under magnification and they appear somewhat like rings of a tree yet a bit more complex. Most Biologists are looking at year class but the trained eye can get down to within a week-accurately.

Until fall of 2017, the YP in my pond did not come to the surface for supplemental feed. Neither did the BG nor GSF. I had been hand feeding AM 600 and Skretting for a few years.

I switched over to floating Optimal BG fall of 2017. The trout made the change immediately. Soon, both GSF and YP were coming up. Of course, I quit feeding when the water got cold.

This spring everyone bellied up to the feed trough. Trout are really splashy feeders. GSF ease up, study the pellet, then rise to it and dart away. YP come up from a couple of feet below the pellet and hit it with a splash and a turn back down.

A few small LMB and BCP fed with everyone else, too. The big grass carp hoovered in what they could.

I'd try Optimal BG. Maybe hydrate it for a few weeks for the perch. They will figure it out in time.