Anyone else's yellow perch slowing down in pellet feeding with their warm water temps? Mine have slowed down considerably in the the last week or so. Algae bloom has increased in two of my four ponds also. Two are at about 28 inches even with lots of filamentous algae and some macrophytes.

Mine haven't slowed down a bit. Oh wait, I don't have any.

Cecil-In SW MI my yellow perch has slowed down quite a bit in the last two weeks. Picked up just a little yesterday but not much.

This time of the year my YP feed almost exclusively at dusk. Unfortunately, I'm never there to witness feeding at that time. However, I noticed they have quit feeding entirely on my early evening offering...so yes, feeding has slowed for me too.

I skipped a day of feeding and will start feeding at first light every day due to an ever increasing algae bloom in one of the ponds at 24 inches and potentially dropping. Hopefully slightly cooler water in the morning will be more optimum for feeding and of course more D.O. I guess that means I need to get to bed earlier.

My bluegill production pond has a clarity of only 18 inches! I may stop feeding them for a while as there should be plenty of zooplankton in the pond.

YP feeding has slowed but the caged and free range BG are still hitting the pellets hard.

I always feed right at dusk and my YP have dropped off too, but they always do in the hot summer. I did see a few tonight

When I stock YP, I think I am going to stick with a mid Atlantic genetic source as opposed to a domesticated Great Lakes stock. I think the mid Atlantic stock will handle warmer water of lower DO better. A hatchery in Delaware sells both.

Good idea!

I just don't think they'll grow to nearly as huge a size as their domesticated Great Lakes cousins would.

But the world record was from Delaware wasn't it?

It was caught in the Delaware River in NJ, so I guess there is the chance... The Delaware stays much cooler in the summer than the more southern Potomac and Rappahannock Rivers though. I am not sure how accurate a fish record from 1865 is...

I thought it was just me, I have noticed my YP slowed a great deal in the last week. I have my aerator installed and am on a start up schedule and thought it may have upset them, glad it is just the heat. My pond is down a good 10 inches in depth with the summer heat, no break in sight either.

Joe,

Join the club. I'm not sure my perch are feeding at all either. But it's hard to tell as they come up so fast anyway and my main pond is dyed pretty heavily with Aquashade.

My main pond that has my biggest perch up to 14 inches or more was about 87 F. on the surface yesterday and 83 F. on the bottom at 11 feet! I'm only running my compressors from about midnight to 5 or 6 A.M. now on the ponds that have yellow perch. Hopefully this will keep warming down a little but replenish oxygen in the deep water. I may end up running well water into my smaller holding pond to drop temps a little.

My smaller holding pond where I have mostly male perch and female bluegill was about 89 on the surface but dropped to about 80 near the bottom at 8 feet. This pond albeit smaller at only 1/10th acre has very steep sides with a low surface area vs. the large .62 acre pond I referred to in the previous paragraph.

I must say getting into the water for swimming isn't a shock this year!

These temps are stressful on the perch especially the big ones. I did a have a medium size floater in the holding pond show up a couple of days ago.

Good point with no photograph or much documentation to boot. Just like that world record largemouth from Georgia. Whoops! Now I've done it! Greg Grimes is going to be upset again!

I do suspect my perch are still eating fatheads though Cecil, some are still eating pellets but the rate of consumption has slowed enough I don't morning feed at present, and my evening feed is crowding darkness here. The FH feed a little closer than the perch and while observing them feed you can see them evade something, often in a linear pattern so I suspect perch are strafing them from below and scattering the FH that do miss the mouth of a hungry fish.

Joe,

No doubt the perch are nailing them from below!