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Description and Habitat
Extensive stocking of the yellow perch (perca flavescens) has increased the fish's range in most North American rivers, lakes, streams and ponds. On average, perch grow only two or three inches per year. Most perch are nine inches long and weigh less than one pound, but some lakes with sand-and rock bottoms produce perch that weigh over two pounds.
Behaviour
At night in early spring when the water temperature reaches 48ºF, females lay over 100 thousand eggs in a string over aquatic growth. Perch do not nest, nor do they protect their hatched fry. Within two weeks half of the eggs hatch, though walleyes, pickerel, bass, and northern pike eat many of the young fry. The surviving fry hide in shallow weedy waters and subsist on tiny zooplankton and insect larvae, and later they eat small fish and other perch. Perch are important forage fish; for every fifty thousand hatched fry, only ten fry will reach one year of life.
Perch travel in schools of similarly sized fish. Sometimes the males and females will travel in separate schools during parts of the year. Mature fish feed in deep water during the day, and move to the shallows to feed at dusk.
During the spring spawning run, the small feeder streams are full of mature perch ripe for the taking. Fishing during the spring spawn does not diminish the perch population according to some biologists, but rather protects the population from underdevelopment due to overcrowding (especially in Chesapeake Bay). Peak runs last from ten to fourteen days, and produce some of the best perch fishing of the year.
Perch strike hard and quickly tire, but they are one of the best-tasting freshwater fish in North America.
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