Perch Size Question

[Jesse059]

So i watch alot of youtube videos of fishing not just in alberta but all over canada and the states. One thing i have noticed is why are their perch so much bigger than in Alberta. I know we have some fair sized ones but those are few and far between.

One video for instance these guys are fishing a small pond for crappie and bass and are pulling out 14" plus sized perch. My question is how can ponds that size support huge crappie, bass, bluegill, And huge yellow perch while pretty large bodies of water in alberta with just perch and trout are super stunted in size?

And yes i am just jelly

[Talking moose]

So i watch alot of youtube videos of fishing not just in alberta but all over canada and the states. One thing i have noticed is why are their perch so much bigger than in Alberta. I know we have some fair sized ones but those are few and far between.

One video for instance these guys are fishing a small pond for crappie and bass and are pulling out 14" plus sized perch. My question is how can ponds that size support huge crappie, bass, bluegill, And huge yellow perch while pretty large bodies of water in alberta with just perch and trout are super stunted in size?

And yes i am just jelly

Combination of things. In Alberta when a lake starts producing jumbos, people will drive 6 hours away to help the other 300 trucks fish it out in less than a year. That and poor management of other predatory species. Tons of stunted or near absent perch lakes here.

[pinelakeperch]

Forage. Those lakes in Minnesota and the Dakotas with big perch are full of freshwater shrimp.

[Brandonkop]

Talking Moose is right but there are other factors.

1. Many perch lakes suffer at least partial winterkills every so many years and the biggest fish in the lake are most susceptible so they will die out regardless of being fished out. The USA has shorter winters which usually mean less chance of winterkill allowing fish to die of old age rather than low dissolved oxygen levels.

2. The biologists in Alberta have prioritized Walleye catch rates over all else to the point of complete domination of walleye. They consume the forage base necessary to grow big perch and then they eat all the small perch and then you have no perch to grow up. They haven't realized this apparently yet. To my utter dismay.

3. Growing season - Fish are like trees. If you have ever cut a tree down you can count the age based on the rings. The reason you see rings is during the summer the tree grows fast and during the winter is slows right down. Fish are the same. So in the USA they have a far longer growing season. Check out this great video on aging fish by Gord Pyzer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaL7fXZTmIw

4. Growth Rate vs Age: So given #3 the fish are far bigger at a younger age in warmer climates. Meaning our 12 inch fish may be 2-4 years older than the same 12 inch fish south of the boarder. Then throw probability in there and it is much easier to get a big fish based off fast growth rates than avoiding predation and fishermen for a longer period of time.

Despite fish in northern areas living for a longer period of time to achieve their size, the growth rates are substantially less and the older a fish gets the slower its growth rate gets. Therefore you get really old fish that never achieve the size that the fast growing younger fish get to in the south. Even if the USA fish die faster.

5. Genetics and Forage base - Take for example the European Perch. Different genetics and different forage. Different more aggressive behavior eating larger food items equals perch measured in Kilograms. It's insane. The same so with fish across the USA and canada. Genetics varies and some just have a predisposition to reach larger sizes. Now that being said the current Jumbo Perch Producer in the USA, Cascade lake, was stocked with parent perch from a stunted population of perch. Therefore genetic potential was there in the fish, just masked by overpopulation and competition.

6. Those small ponds often are crawling with food. They are warm, tons of nutrients and the whole depth of the pond is shallow which means that every square foot of the lake is food producing. A lot of our lake don't have much food production besides the shallower edges.

Hope that wasn't too long winded. I find this stuff really interesting and even though I'm no fish biologist these are the reasons I've come up with.

[Jigger]

Great post Brandon, thanks for that :)

[fsa313]

A really great post, Brandon, thank-you.

[Fishwhere]

Im with brandon... priority is all on walleye - and im not a fan. I would like to see better balance overall. Pike and perch specifically.

[Hunter4ever12]

Im with brandon... priority is all on walleye - and im not a fan. I would like to see better balance overall. Pike and perch specifically.

+1

[smokerman]

Talking Moose is right but there are other factors.

1. Many perch lakes suffer at least partial winterkills every so many years and the biggest fish in the lake are most susceptible so they will die out regardless of being fished out. The USA has shorter winters which usually mean less chance of winterkill allowing fish to die of old age rather than low dissolved oxygen levels.

2. The biologists in Alberta have prioritized Walleye catch rates over all else to the point of complete domination of walleye. They consume the forage base necessary to grow big perch and then they eat all the small perch and then you have no perch to grow up. They haven't realized this apparently yet. To my utter dismay.

3. Growing season - Fish are like trees. If you have ever cut a tree down you can count the age based on the rings. The reason you see rings is during the summer the tree grows fast and during the winter is slows right down. Fish are the same. So in the USA they have a far longer growing season. Check out this great video on aging fish by Gord Pyzer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaL7fXZTmIw

4. Growth Rate vs Age: So given #3 the fish are far bigger at a younger age in warmer climates. Meaning our 12 inch fish may be 2-4 years older than the same 12 inch fish south of the boarder. Then throw probability in there and it is much easier to get a big fish based off fast growth rates than avoiding predation and fishermen for a longer period of time.

Despite fish in northern areas living for a longer period of time to achieve their size, the growth rates are substantially less and the older a fish gets the slower its growth rate gets. Therefore you get really old fish that never achieve the size that the fast growing younger fish get to in the south. Even if the USA fish die faster.

5. Genetics and Forage base - Take for example the European Perch. Different genetics and different forage. Different more aggressive behavior eating larger food items equals perch measured in Kilograms. It's insane. The same so with fish across the USA and canada. Genetics varies and some just have a predisposition to reach larger sizes. Now that being said the current Jumbo Perch Producer in the USA, Cascade lake, was stocked with parent perch from a stunted population of perch. Therefore genetic potential was there in the fish, just masked by overpopulation and competition.

6. Those small ponds often are crawling with food. They are warm, tons of nutrients and the whole depth of the pond is shallow which means that every square foot of the lake is food producing. A lot of our lake don't have much food production besides the shallower edges.

Hope that wasn't too long winded. I find this stuff really interesting and even though I'm no fish biologist these are the reasons I've come up with.
Alberta Fish and Game have tunnel vision, they can only see walleye flashing in front of their eyes. For example take Uticima Lake. I don't know who told them their were no Walleye in there : Iv'e caught all different sizes Walleye in there and the Pike are 3 ft long and 3'' deep. I think the story goes the Walleye are eating Pike and Perch out of house and home. Oh and there are plenty of large fat Walleye to be caught. Can't find a Perch anymore.

[Kim473]

Alberta Fish and Game have tunnel vision, they can only see walleye flashing in front of their eyes. For example take Uticima Lake. I don't know who told them their were no Walleye in there : Iv'e caught all different sizes Walleye in there and the Pike are 3 ft long and 3'' deep. I think the story goes the Walleye are eating Pike and Perch out of house and home. Oh and there are plenty of large fat Walleye to be caught. Can't find a Perch anymore.

Some of the biggest eyes in the province are in there. Caught most of mine that were over 60 cm. And they closed the lake for eyes this year. A couple years back the pike were so skinny, a keeper in length was 2 lbs underweight for it's size. One walleye had as much meat as 3 keeper length pike. I won't keep a pike from there now. Walleye are gonna kill / have killed the lakes off for other species of fish in this province. They used to stock feeder fish and perch years back and now they don't ! I think F & G are idiots. JMO.

Was just a few years ago that everyone was catching 15 lb or larger pike from Wabamun daily, now just the odd one. Why ? Walleye + catch and release mortality rate with pike = smaller pike and no perch.

F & G are idiots with regards to fish management and stocking.

[HuyFishin]

Some of the biggest eyes in the province are in there. Caught most of mine that were over 60 cm. And they closed the lake for eyes this year. A couple years back the pike were so skinny, a keeper in length was 2 lbs underweight for it's size. One walleye had as much meat as 3 keeper length pike. I won't keep a pike from there now. Walleye are gonna kill / have killed the lakes off for other species of fish in this province. They used to stock feeder fish and perch years back and now they don't ! I think F & G are idiots. JMO.

Was just a few years ago that everyone was catching 15 lb or larger pike from Wabamun daily, now just the odd one. Why ? Walleye + catch and release mortality rate with pike = smaller pike and no perch.

F & G are idiots with regards to fish management and stocking.

Damn those were the days when you could catch a 15 pound pike almost on a daily basis!

[Sundancefisher]

:scared:Perch have a finite life span. So key variable is food. Every perch will grow huge with unlimited food. When food is limited they stunt or in other words stop growing at about 6 inches to allow for more individual per square cube of water.

What limits stunting can be winter or summer kill or predation.

Walleye and pike and other perch eat perch naturally. Grebes, mergansers and lions eat perch.

People catch perch.

In my little experiment we had tons of perch within casting distance...all stunted. We fished them hard removing thousands upon thousands. Just in an area about 100 feet X 100 feet. Now we catch 9 and even 10 inchers. Not a ton but we have seen a size increase for sure.

It is true they have bigger fish further south and because of the mix of predation and growing season.

Good predator / prey balance allows for normal year class development.

[Smoky buck]

Balance is they key and over population causes stunting and when it comes to a body of water overall fish numbers impact both feed and oxygen levels. During times oxygen levels are lower but survivable it also impacts the fish stress wise causing them to feed less impacting growth

Most of the complaints read here about pike, perch .... is the balance of that body of water is out of whack in one or more ways

[RACKER]

How come perch in Wizard don’t get bigger? There are lots of predators and the food source seems good.

[Sundancefisher]

How come perch in Wizard don’t get bigger? There are lots of predators and the food source seems good.

Not enough mortality of perch would be my guess leading to over population. Likely perch over winter better than pike.

No giant pike a good indicator

[HuyFishin]

Buy out all of petsmarts fish pellets and fish flakes and dump it into the lake lmao

[pikeman06]

Another interesting fact. If a mature perch is stunted and you remove it from the stunted waters and put it into a different environment with food aplenty it will not grow like you think it would, but if you take an immature perch say a 3 incher or so from the stunted waters and give it feed it will balloon into a football as it grows. We tried it when we were kids up in bonnyville in grampas cattle dugout. (We didn't know it was illegal...this was 30 years ago and we were 7 years old so settle down). The stunted adults still had the sunken belly and big head but the small fries turned into jumbos alot quicker than you would think. Why not net the immature ones in these stunted populations and put them in the lakes that grow big perch.? Not you and me of course our impeccable fisheries staff would have to get off their buts and actually work for a living to improve our depleted and mismanaged perch waters. Food for thought.

[fisher Gord]

Alberta Fish and Game have tunnel vision, they can only see walleye flashing in front of their eyes. For example take Uticima Lake. I don't know who told them their were no Walleye in there : Iv'e caught all different sizes Walleye in there and the Pike are 3 ft long and 3'' deep. I think the story goes the Walleye are eating Pike and Perch out of house and home. Oh and there are plenty of large fat Walleye to be caught. Can't find a Perch anymore.

you must be referring to Alberta fish and wildlife as AFGA has always called for balanced fish populations in lakes and does not believe in "Walleye" lakes. they have to have a food base and the population must be controlled. AFGA past president

[220 Swift]

Perch are like the cute girl at the bar

they are there you can see them the float about in groups and they flirt around a lot. I have kind of lost interest in them lol.

[223MB]

Perch are like the cute girl at the bar

they are there you can see them the float about in groups and they flirt around a lot. I have kind of lost interest in them lol.

But now switched it up and you only go after the big long slimy ones..

















PIKE you sick animals.

[EZM]

Based on everything we know, and most Biologists would agree, that overpopulation causes stunting due to food shortages.

A simple answer in most watersheds would be a higher retention limit.

Unfortunately nobody (very few) people could be bothered to go out in a day, catch a bucket full of 5"-6" perch and go through the trouble of cleaning them.

The reason a few lakes around here still have decent sized perch in the 10"-11" as common sizes, is that they are fished pretty hard through the ice. You guys know which lakes I'm talking about.

[HuyFishin]

Based on everything we know, and most Biologists would agree, that overpopulation causes stunting due to food shortages.

A simple answer in most watersheds would be a higher retention limit.

Unfortunately nobody (very few) people could be bothered to go out in a day, catch a bucket full of 5"-6" perch and go through the trouble of cleaning them.

The reason a few lakes around here still have decent sized perch in the 10"-11" as common sizes, is that they are fished pretty hard through the ice. You guys know which lakes I'm talking about.

which lakes we talking about again???

Jk