[ghostguy6]

I think if people could leave those lakes alone they would recover. Of course there are variables like predation that come into play. I don't think the human fishing factor will truly kill off all the fish in a lake, there will always be some breeding fish in the lake. If the fish population is low and the lake suffers a winter kill then it might never recover. I know of two lakes that are making a comeback because quite frankly people no longer talk about them. In a few years I would expect them to produce some 14" perch. I will not mention what lakes these are. Another factor is when a lake gets "killed off" it tends to get stocked with trout or walleye. This is detrimental to the remaining perch and pike populations.

I think as anglers one of the worst things we can do is publicly discuss good fish locations, especially perch locations. Too many times you can see a direct correlation between forums (this one included) and the amount of fishing pressure. One thing to remember is for every active member there are 100's if not 1000's of people just phishing for information. The closer to urban populations the worse it gets.

Looks at Hasse for example, once a great trout fishery with a decent perch population. Once people started posting about keeper sized perch the lake became packed. Certain ethnic groups flocked to the lake until there were no fish of keep-able size left. Granted the algae blooms from run off fertilizer didn't help.No the lake is a ghost town