Thread: White perch - as bad as they say they are in different states?

Originally Posted by SeaRay

That is a nice White Perch. If you get into the bigger ones like that when they are schooled up in winter it is like catching footballs. A Flexit spoon is murder on them when they are on the bottom in 15 to 30 FOW.

Last weekend I used a Fle Fly bendable jig. I put on a single hook. It was lites out.

Originally Posted by Spoonminnow

Recently I've been catching more white perch and larger whites than anytime in the last 10 years in my local crappie/bass/pickerel lake. I did some research to find out why all of a sudden this species became so numerous and in sizes ranging from 3.5"-10". What I found was disturbing!

According to different state agencies, white perch can be detrimental to local fish populations - even their own - for the following reasons:

Pirmary food - eggs of all species
Secondary food - fingerlings of all species and shiners that comprise a significant source of multi-specie diets.
Prolific in that females can lay anywhere from 20,000 to 300,000 eggs which are fertilized by many males.

Overpopulation equates to small fish of all species at first and then the destruction of the young of certain species such as walleye and bass, even though small white perch also make up a part of their food source.

In Kansas, the law states that all white perch caught must be kept and disposed of. Other states encourage non-release, though it is expected that most small perch not worth cleaning will go back.

White perch are not real perch but related to white bass and can dilute the white bass gene pool by crossbreeding - another reason to kill them.

I'll be making a presentation to my fishing club to have white perch tournaments to help the fishery, but knowing how little interest bass and pickerel anglers have for catching panfish, I doubt they will see the danger until it is too late. As of this year, yellow perch catches are way down but crappie are still doing well - numbers and size. That could change. I've taken out over 400 small perch in the last two months to feed the bass in my pond, not caring about the spawns of the five species in it. That won't even put a dent in the w.p. population.

Good and thoughtful post. That you for sharing this. I keep about 20 panfish (White Bass, Crappie, Bluegill, SHellcracker or Perch) whenever I go fishing. It depends on what is biting that day. When I was in Ohio we would drive to Sandusky when the White Bass ran and four of us could land 200 a day from the shore in about two hours.

Never seen a White Perch here to my knowledge but we have White Bass and those pesky little Yellow Bass.

Caught a few of these monsters yesterday. Too bad I don't eat freshwater fish.

i have never experienced white perch in a lake or land locked place,but i have caught them in a tidal river i fish in often.i have not caught any this year,but last year i caught some nice ones over a pound.they fight really good! i wish i would hook into some,i love em!every spring they have a run up that river.i wonder if it is possable to net whole schools of them and just go dump them into a tidal river where they naturally belong? or feed hungry people with em?

Picture that wasn't in the last post.

Originally Posted by bxn

i wonder if it is possable to net whole schools of them and just go dump them into a tidal river where they naturally belong?

Probably possible, and illegal in many states if done by private individuals, for good reason--I wouldn't want anybody but a fisheries biologist determining where a species "naturally belongs." Not saying you came off as planning to do this, but I wouldn't want other readers of this thread to get such ideas.

Here are both, the top one is a white perch and the bottom one is the white bass, both caught at port bay, lake ontario new york.
icejohn