Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Yellow perch?

Ok so long story short my son and I were fishing in our pond and my son hooked a perch in the eye and when lifting the perch out of the pond by the line the hook dug into his head/brain and it died right on the spot.

A nice 9" perch we then fillet up the perch. This perch had a belly full of eggs well not from eating them but ready to spawn.

Question? do perch or can perch have a fall spawn?

Question two is we spotted some salamanders in the pond. They were about 3"s long. Are they any benefit to the perch? Will they eat them and multiply in the pond?

Cheers Don.

No will not spawn in the fall but will already be developing eggs for next spring. Perch will eat anything that fits in their mouths. Could eat them.

Doubt they will be significant in numbers though as it's very dangerous for something that small where there are fish.

If the salamanders are in your pond, they are likely Eastern Newts:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_newt

From what I understand they are a bit like toads in that they secrete poison when threatened, so they can co-exist with some fish.

Thats what it looked like. Just a really big tad pole.

Good to know that they will not spawn in the fall. I was really worried I needed to add a predator much sooner then later.

Cheers Don.

I'm far from an expert, but I've caught crappies well past their spawn season and they still had eggs. My guess is that the fish in question missed the cycle. They say that they will re-absorb the eggs eventually.

I'd guess that you are at the midway point between spawning seasons so it could go either way, BUT I sure wouldn't think that perch would be holding eggs all winter.

Fish begin developing eggs much earlier than people would think. It's not uncommon to catch brown trout in early spring with eggs already developing when they won't spawn until late Oct or Nov. However, the eggs are very small in size compared to how large they would be when actually laid.

Ive seen LMB with eggs in them this time of year on some of the warmer lakes down in south texas. Some claim its a fall spawn but im not so sure.

I don't ever recall seeing eggs in fall caught yellow perch, but through the ice definitely.

Gamete (egg) production in most female pond fish is often but not always dependent on a cycle of temp drops and shorting photoperiod (daylight) followed by lengthening photoperiod and increasing temps.

One factor that can skew this is a pond just stocked so that the new fish are trying to establish a viable population (fill up the pond with their kind). Either way the fish need to be in good condition to produce eggs (not starving to death).

I think gametes begin forming soon after spawning season is over but aren't as noticeable as they are months later.

I wonder if some of you knew that years ago to get trout eggs in the northern hemisphere that hatch out of season they were shipped from the southern hemisphere. Not sure how widespread that was but it was done according to a text I read. Now of course there is a strain of rainbow that spawns every month of the year and fall spawning rainbows and steelhead are not uncommon. Of course with other species of fish photoperiod and temps are manipulated to get different spawning times.

Yellow perch in Lake Erie will begin egg development in August and in southern Ontario's smaller waters where ice will form in early-mid-Dec eggs can have noticeable development at the end of Sept.

This makes sense. This is Lake Erie stock and just about the end of September.

It is great to learn all this info when it was there all along.

Cheers Don.