Anyone familiar with yellow perch?

I have a pond overpopulated with bluegill. They started out hybrid and grew well. They aren't supposed to breed but a few do and you soon have some funny looking little sunfish that will not get big enough to eat no matter how much you feed them. A fish hatchery near here has red ear and yellow perch for stocking and I plan to seine what bluegill I can out of my pond and put these in instead. I am familiar with red ear, but I never saw a yellow perch. How big do they get and are they a tastey eating fish?

[copperkid3]

Not sure where you're located, but here in southern Michigan; especially the Great Lakes, you are talking some good eating fish. I remember as a youngster going out with my grandpa to Lake Erie and making an all day fishing trip. Would come home with anywhere from 80 to 150 yellow perch; Grandpa would take out about 5-6 good sized ones and then say, "Better hurry and get those cleaned up and in the freezer!" Then he'd head for home.....Dad and I would then spend about another hour cutting, cleaning and packaging up the rest. Most average size is 8 to 10 inches, but some get up to 12 to 14 inches. We stopped going when we started getting cysts and worms in the flesh; most likely from pollution. That was over 40 years ago; haven't been back since, but do miss them. Very good sweet tasting flesh.

Worm in the flesh are getting to be a problem in farm ponds here also. The state fish biologist said it was a parasite carried by blue herons, which is likely as they have become a common nuisance here the last few years. He said to put red ear in the pond as they will eat the parasites and eliminate them. I haven't had a problem yet but am going to add some red ear just in case. Herons are nasty critters and they carry lots of things.

[fin29]

Yup--perch is delicious but tough to eat because it's so bony--it's invasive, though and kills trout.

[Rita]

I never found yellow perch to be bony. In fact you get a nice thick slab of meat if fileted. Not bony at all like say a pickeral. Very good tasting!

[tinknal]

They are related to walleyes, and taste similar. Hearabouts they usually don't often ever get to eating size on the smaller lakes so I don't know how they will do in a pond.

[RACCOON]

Here in the U.P. of Michigan ,yellow perch is the number one eating fish

[Ed Norman]

We caught 81 last Sunday in a lake that has perch and big rainbows. They eat each other and do fine. And we eat them and do fine. You get a fillet as big as your thumb from the smaller ones and they taste wonderful.

[Rocky Fields]

Hey.

Yellow perch are very tasty. You can catch them on artificial or worms, but minnows work the best for me.

I don't know if your able to get bass, but they like to snack on bluegills. I cut a bucketmouth open one time and he had six two inch gills in his belly.

RF

[mistletoad]

Yellow perch are our favorite too - got to be over 9 inches to keep them here and the creel limit is 5 a day.

[ripcat-ranch]

My dad used to fish for perch all the time. He would fillet them and we would have a boneless piece of great tasting fish. I wish I could fish for some around here but don't because of so much mercury in the water.

[fishhead]

The grubs you're talking about are probably the yellow grubs. They live in herons, then ramshorn snails and then fish and then back into the heron during their life cycle.

No snails no grubs. Redears are good for reducing snail numbers if you can use them.

We used to fish perch near Rapid River MI when I was a kid. They taste great and can be filleted to be completely boneless.

[GREG VT]

Yellow perch is the second best fresh water fish for eating in my opinion. The best being Walleye which is a perch also.

Unless they are very big I don't filet them myself. I skin them and cut off the belly leaving the spine with two slabs of meat. Bread them with your favorite breading and fry them in hot grease until golden brown. If cooked right you can just peel the boneless slabs of meat off the spine starting at the tail.

They are very prolific and the population can become stunted if there are to many competing for the available food.

They'll eat anything and are very easy to catch if you are on a school.

[TNTPoultry]

Was born and raised in Michigan and yellow Perch are some of the BEST EATIN'! You can sometimes get some big ones 12"+ but our norm was 8-10". They are not bony like trout.

Thanks everyone. I think I will put 100 or so in to see how they do. I will feed them floating fish food and see if they eat it.

[Terri]

We caught perch in California and they were tasty. That was a LOONG time ago, but we preffered them to bluegill.