I'm in Southern Ohio, I've not seen any ribbons, but I ran up north of Dayton on Friday (3/22/24) to pick up some more perch. I've had a female population of perch for the past year, but due to time constraints on Friday had them pre-bagged for me. Ended up getting 7 females and 9 males, no big deal as adding males is a decision I've been contemplating because I would enjoy fishing the pond more, and adding a few more meals out of it. Of the 7 females, 5 were still holding eggs and 2 had already dropped. All 9 males were ready to go and milt easily expressed with any pressure to the belly.

Yesterday, air temps neared 60, supposed to near 70 today for us. The previous week before yesterday though, air temps have been 30-40. I threw some floating feed out on Saturday (air temp of 41), just to see if the new perch would just so happen to find it yet. To my surprise, my Specklebellies were surface feeding maniacs! I got curious and checked surface water temp and it was 57.5. I didn't notice any perch feeding, but there were a few crash and dashes I didn't see that were very perch-like. I did fish the pond at the end of January with air temps in the 30s. Culled 10 perch to eat, of those 10, about half had fish food in their bellies. about 3-4 days before I fished it I threw some floating feed out because it had warmed up to air temps of 50s. I didn't observe any surface feeding at the time, but I guess they found it!

[Linked Image from lh6.ggpht.com]