Perch limits????

[IHUNT]

What do you think the limit on perch should be? Where i fish the limit is 5. Im just wundering why the limit is 15 in other lakes? I mean does one person really need 15 fish to eat? And if they have a fmaily to feed why not bring them along to fish to. Just a thought?????????

[Drewski Canuck]

This topic comes up all the time. Fact is alot of perch lakes get hit hard when the fishing is on and the fish are big. Is there any studies to suggest that reduced limits make for bigger Perch? More often the fish are stunting badly in our lakes, or they are getting winter killed, or they are getting eaten up by the Walleye.

If the breeding fish are being removed in large numbers, aren't the small ones moving up to replace them? If the breeding perch are removed, thereby limiting the numbers, would that not stop the perch from stuntung in the first place?

Anyways, have fun with this one. There is no easy answer. As for taking 15, that doesn't happen often, as most perch fishermen will tell you.

Drewski

[AK47]

IMHO there should be no limit for perch.

[mulecrazy]

If you are feeding a family of five, then yes, you would need 15 perch to feed them.

It is quite obvious that with the overpopulation of perch they are becoming stunted. The main causes are the under harvest of perch and over harvest of predatory fish like pike and walleye. You CANNOT manage perch like you do species like pike and walleye. totally different breeding and growth characteristics. Lakes have a carrying capacity for each type of fish, and when the perch out produce their feed capability they stunt, very simple. To prove that, all one has to do is look at lakes that have perch and no pike. Cow Lake is a prime example. Up until a few years ago there were only trout and perch. You put a wire worm with a maggot down your hole and it was absolutely surrounded by dozens of tiny little perch, not one of which was a keeper. Now with pike being introduced their numbers are down, but size is up. In time a guy will be able to catch 5 decent perch instead of 50 useless ones.

[HunterDave]

Each lake is unique and possession limits should be adjusted to suit the lake.....pretty much what SRD is doing now. Fishing pressure, natural predators, winter/summer kill, etc, etc, etc needs to be considered for each lake. Sometimes taking 15 perch out of a lake helps the lake as opposed to hurting it.