Illegally stocked perch

[Wulfespirit]

Originally Posted by C@RN@GE

Hassie went from being full of 12 inch perch to under 6 inch perch in a year. Sound like everything over 6 inches died off that year. Has nothing to do with the 30 plus vehicles on it every day. Or the fact that as soon as one is keep able it is kept. But nope there stunted for sure. Same with spring before it winterkilled. 5-7 years ago u could catch 12+inch perch and some massive trout out of there. Then a couple of post showed up and it went from being a amazing fishery to a lake with small trout and 5 inch perch in less then a year. Then people that followed the post assume its stunted. Ignoring the fact there’s 50 to 100 people on these lakes everyday looking for something to keep. Mons use to be a great lake for bigger perch and pike. Same thing happened people post it gets fished out people that follow the post assume it stunted. I’m not saying lakes didn't stunt. But it takes a lot longer then a couple years.

HPF,

Perhaps you should read the SRD document posted earlier in this thread.

You do realize that once the perch got large breeding activity went WAY up and the raw number of smallish perch rose exponentially....... right?

There is NOT enough food in Hasse to allow those perch to grow at a reasonable rate - period. Anglers WERE responsible for the bigger ones leaving the lake of course.. but even if all angling stopped tomorrow, Hasse wouldn't produce decent sized perch at a rate where any could be harvested. There are too many in there and not enough space or food for them.

As the document points out, often the initial batch of perch attains good size.. after that.. bubye. You want decent perch in Hasse, it'll have less to do with angling pressure and more to do with stopping the stocking of trout and adding more predators to the mix to thin the perch down.

[Wulfespirit]

Originally Posted by Sundancefisher

The perch will reproduce exponentially and out compete trout for food and space. There is no controlling perch via angling. The population growth is much to big. Maybe a combination of intensive netting and angling could keep their numbers down and sizes up but the volunteer effort in the Spring would be large.

On lakes with large populations of Walleye and Pike, perch seem to be controlled quite well (too well). Is this because there isn't a better food source available for the predators beyond the perch?

[WayneChristie]

Originally Posted by Hatfisher

FYI: The Lake in Cypress Hills AB that was illegally stocked, was with Walleye. It was Spruce Coulee. It is stocked with Brook Trout. There is a limit of 3 Walleye with no size limit.

From the Regs,

Spruce Coulee – Open all year – Trout limit 5; Walleye limit 3 (no size limit). Harvest encouraged to remove illegally stocked walleye from stocked Brook Trout fishery.

Fished there a few times and have never caught a Walleye there.

had my boat and my kids in there, this was a long time ago, but we caught a ton of little perch. The walleye came later I believe.

[Paul C]

Four years ago the perch at Hasse finally moved from the southwest corner of the lake. I started to catch some decent ones 10 feet from the floating dock. The fishing pressure was increasing to the point that some people were taking there limit of small perch, around 4 inches long. I was surprised to find out that there were cooking them whole in boiling water.
I had mentioned that the perch fillets taste alot better than the whole fish. He answer was to catch them while they can. Whatever
Mr. Wulfspirit you are quite correct with your observations. At least you show some common sense. Cheers to you

[DarkAisling]

Originally Posted by Geezle

I'd say they're not a nuisance in lakes they are native to, where conditions and predators keep them in check.

You are 100% correct, and I was being a little facetious (but just a "little"). Certainly I can see how they'd be a great lunch for other fish: pike and walleye, in particular. A limited perch population could be a great thing at PCR, where the walleye have few options to fill their little empty tummies. I'm sure there are other lakes where a perch population could improve conditions.

If just seems like a perch population is hard to balance. Is there anything else that can ruin a lake the way perch can? I've never heard of a stunted trout population in a lake.

[C@RN@GE]

Originally Posted by Wulfespirit

HPF,

Perhaps you should read the SRD document posted earlier in this thread.

You do realize that once the perch got large breeding activity went WAY up and the raw number of smallish perch rose exponentially....... right?

There is NOT enough food in Hasse to allow those perch to grow at a reasonable rate - period. Anglers WERE responsible for the bigger ones leaving the lake of course.. but even if all angling stopped tomorrow, Hasse wouldn't produce decent sized perch at a rate where any could be harvested. There are too many in there and not enough space or food for them.

As the document points out, often the initial batch of perch attains good size.. after that.. bubye. You want decent perch in Hasse, it'll have less to do with angling pressure and more to do with stopping the stocking of trout and adding more predators to the mix to thin the perch down.

How do u know there was not enough food left? There’s no way to prove that? Your just assuming that it has. Hassie has huge shallow forge base. The trout still grow even through 95 percent are removed the ones at the end of year are always a lot bigger then the ones they stocked.

[Sundancefisher]

Originally Posted by TJG

People like Sundance and Don Andersen in RMH are in favor
of killing fish for the betterment of trout fishing. Yes it’s wrong
for the bucket bios to be doing this, but who gives anyone the
right to kill millions of fish for the sake of a few trout.
What if all the walleye they stock in Sylvan, Pigeon, PCR, ect, were
endangered by some mysteriously introduced competitor for forage,
do you kill a lake that may include trout, as well as other fish?
The bios that are looking after our lakes needed to find some
better answers and stop listening to organizations like Trout Unlimited,
and trout fisherman ****ed about their local lakes.
Now, I know this is going to start a poo storm, but I need to say my
peace and vent for the few that r thinking it but wont speak.

If you don't understand the topic...please don't post. You clearly are not thinking like a normal person to this regard.

We are not talking about Gull, Pigeon, Buck, Sylvan, Wabamun blah blah blah... Pot hole lakes can not support perch as a sport fish. Get it? Don't get it...does not matter. Clearly you have a fascination with trying to provoke without any real points of debate. Pure crap...does not make for a thread.

If you believe illegally stocking perch in a pot hole trout lake is a good thing...then get your head out of your....

Cheers

Sun

[Sundancefisher]

Originally Posted by C@RN@GE

Hassie went from being full of 12 inch perch to under 6 inch perch in a year. Sound like everything over 6 inches died off that year. Has nothing to do with the 30 plus vehicles on it every day. Or the fact that as soon as one is keep able it is kept. But nope there stunted for sure. Same with spring before it winterkilled. 5-7 years ago u could catch 12+inch perch and some massive trout out of there. Then a couple of post showed up and it went from being a amazing fishery to a lake with small trout and 5 inch perch in less then a year. Then people that followed the post assume its stunted. Ignoring the fact there’s 50 to 100 people on these lakes everyday looking for something to keep. Mons use to be a great lake for bigger perch and pike. Same thing happened people post it gets fished out people that follow the post assume it stunted. I’m not saying lakes didn't stunt. But it takes a lot longer then a couple years.

Firstly...you need to understand that perch stunt. Year after year large and increasing numbers of perch get recruited into the lake without any real predation.

Secondly you need to understand that from your view point you see a ton of large perch getting harvested. They are the first wave of perch spawned probably 7 years earlier and nearing the end of their life... A few in the next years will reach a slightly smaller and smaller size until the lake is so full that mother nature shuts down their maximum size at 6 inches. This is what is referred to as stunting.

Stunting is extremely well understood. Harvesting all the large fish in the first few waves is meaningless to future fishing success. The writing is already on the wall that billions of 4-6 inchers is all that will soon remain.

So that is why the fishing sucks...as any remaining fish are so overwhelmed by the hordes of stunted fish that the odds are strongly against them ever reaching your hook before the small guys get there.

By the time the perch were of sufficient size and in sufficient numbers to catch it was only a matter of a year or two before the mass numbers of smaller fish overwhelmed the lake.

Now with the food all gone...the lake is crap for trout and crap for perch.

Great job who ever put the perch in there...great job indeed.

[Sundancefisher]

Originally Posted by Wulfespirit

On lakes with large populations of Walleye and Pike, perch seem to be controlled quite well (too well). Is this because there isn't a better food source available for the predators beyond the perch?

There is a natural balance that is maintained. Walleye and pike feed on perch, suckers, whitefish, minnow, invertebrates and even their own young.

As additional harvesters we often forget the equilibrium that comes with a natural system. Where we want more of somethings...we always assume if we kill all the predators it helps. Not always the case. What you see as few perch of a size you want to eat...nature could see as fine. Also natural recruitment success is also variable year after year. Removal of certain size fish over the numbers needed for successful recruitment can also be a factor. Also food is a factor to any fishes success.

Anyways...long story short. Lots of factors impact perch numbers and size in a natural lake.

[Wulfespirit]

Originally Posted by Sundancefisher

Firstly...you need to understand that perch stunt. Year after year large and increasing numbers of perch get recruited into the lake without any real predation.

Secondly you need to understand that from your view point you see a ton of large perch getting harvested. They are the first wave of perch spawned probably 7 years earlier and nearing the end of their life... A few in the next years will reach a slightly smaller and smaller size until the lake is so full that mother nature shuts down their maximum size at 6 inches. This is what is referred to as stunting.

Stunting is extremely well understood. Harvesting all the large fish in the first few waves is meaningless to future fishing success. The writing is already on the wall that billions of 4-6 inchers is all that will soon remain.

So that is why the fishing sucks...as any remaining fish are so overwhelmed by the hordes of stunted fish that the odds are strongly against them ever reaching your hook before the small guys get there.

By the time the perch were of sufficient size and in sufficient numbers to catch it was only a matter of a year or two before the mass numbers of smaller fish overwhelmed the lake.

Now with the food all gone...the lake is crap for trout and crap for perch.

Great job who ever put the perch in there...great job indeed.

Thank you - well said. Read this closely, HPF.

[Wulfespirit]

Originally Posted by Sundancefisher

There is a natural balance that is maintained. Walleye and pike feed on perch, suckers, whitefish, minnow, invertebrates and even their own young.

As additional harvesters we often forget the equilibrium that comes with a natural system. Where we want more of somethings...we always assume if we kill all the predators it helps. Not always the case. What you see as few perch of a size you want to eat...nature could see as fine. Also natural recruitment success is also variable year after year. Removal of certain size fish over the numbers needed for successful recruitment can also be a factor. Also food is a factor to any fishes success.

Anyways...long story short. Lots of factors impact perch numbers and size in a natural lake.

I understand your point, but there are many lakes in this province that were nicely balanced in past years (good populations of big perch, decent numbers of pike and walleye of all sizes) but are now nearly devoid of perch but brimming with pike and walleye that are suffering from terrible growth rates. Having fished many of those lakes for decades in the past, I think many of them could indeed stand a much more substantial predator harvest as I firmly believe the 'balance' was a hell of a lot better back then.

This is somewhat off topic in any case!

[J.B.]

perch are largely a forage fish where they occur naturally. usually there is some combination of pike, walleye, and burbot keeping the population in check. the lakes where the over population occurs are stocked trout ponds, where both fish compete for the same food base.

the opposite end of the spectrum is pine coulee resivour. it has been stocked with walleye, but there isnt a legal fish in the lake. there is very little forage fish in the lake, but both walleye and burbot are present. if perch were to be introduced to this lake, my bet is that it would have a positive effect on the whole fishery by increasin the foodbase available for walleye...

[Sundancefisher]

Originally Posted by C@RN@GE

How do u know there was not enough food left? There’s no way to prove that? Your just assuming that it has. Hassie has huge shallow forge base. The trout still grow even through 95 percent are removed the ones at the end of year are always a lot bigger then the ones they stocked.

Dude...common sense would prove it if you can't see the logic in the science. Do you think there is a automatic unlimited perch feeder at the bottom of Hasse?

Ummmm.... NO!

Perch just keep on reproducing. They don't stop unless you have been fitting them with little perch condoms when no one was looking.

If you ever took a biology class...just do a little math. If a bath tub has 10 leeches and a fish needs one a year to live and grow and a leech reproduces once a year and has 1 baby...how many perch can the bath tub hold just based upon food. Now have 2 perch in the tub...have them have 10 babies a year and then the 22 have 10 babies and then the 220 have 10 babies and so on...what happens.

Nature will have perch keep cranking out babies until the whole lake is totally full to over flowing.

Figure out a 8 inch perch can have 30,000 eggs...a 14 inch perch 250,000 eggs. With very limited predation...how fast does a population grow?

Just say to yourself one main point...the forage base is not unlimited. 100 cars a day can not do enough damage on a perch population that size.

On our tiny lake in Calgary we netted 32,000 perch. Last year I could catch 100 a day easy. This year...I can catch 100 a day easy.

100 cars a day at 15 perch a day would take about 19 - 8 inch females babies a year. Do you think only 19 females are laying eggs. Figure if only 200,000 females are laying eggs...and at 8 inches so say 30,000 eggs. Then figure only 5% survive even though there is no real predation.

How many new perch are coming into the system? 300 million? Say only 10% of those females laid eggs. That is 30 million babies? Do you think harvest 500,000 perch a year will matter or stop stunting.

Please give you head a shake.

Cheers

Sun

[Sundancefisher]

Originally Posted by Wulfespirit

I understand your point, but there are many lakes in this province that were nicely balanced in past years (good populations of big perch, decent numbers of pike and walleye of all sizes) but are now nearly devoid of perch but brimming with pike and walleye that are suffering from terrible growth rates. Having fished many of those lakes for decades in the past, I think many of them could indeed stand a much more substantial predator harvest as I firmly believe the 'balance' was a hell of a lot better back then.

This is somewhat off topic in any case!

Well...over harvest of large fish in a natural lake can cause these problems. Netting, fishing, poor recruitment etc. Stocking walleye and letting them go nuts will affect the balance.

Hard to say but I have seen yearly changes with lake whitefish occur naturally also. Some years there is awesome recruitment...other years there is a poor year class. The actual reasons are probably outside the scope for biologists to pin down often.

The Bow River also sees this sort of thing happen.

Sun

[Wulfespirit]

I've never fished PCR but from what I hear, I suspect some of those walleye will need to be harvested at some point or the perch won't take in sufficient numbers to provide good forage (even with their crazy breeding ability). In any given north/central lake that is now brimming with (mostly) medium sized walleye due to restrictive regulations (and pike for that matter), the perch populations have suffered hard. Lakes with limited walleye/pike numbers seem to all be full of mostly stunted perch.... seems to be a tricky balance to achieve.. I wish SRD would make an effort though. There are only 2 lakes I can think of that still have a reasonable balance (probably a few more I don't know about). Interestingly, both of the lakes allow a reasonable and attainable harvest of predators and have perch limits of 15.

[fluxcore]

I love perch and am lucky enough to know of two spots where im the only one fishing I keep my limit every time as well as my daughters if she catches it and they always seem to be there. If your not fishing on a large body of water the keeper perch can dry up fast and after a year or too it leaves the genetically smaller perch to reproduce and the fish start to get smaller and smaller......... but mmmmmmmmmm perch I think ill pull some out of the freezer for breaky tomorrow

[C@RN@GE]

Originally Posted by Sundancefisher

Firstly...you need to understand that perch stunt. Year after year large and increasing numbers of perch get recruited into the lake without any real predation.

Secondly you need to understand that from your view point you see a ton of large perch getting harvested. They are the first wave of perch spawned probably 7 years earlier and nearing the end of their life... A few in the next years will reach a slightly smaller and smaller size until the lake is so full that mother nature shuts down their maximum size at 6 inches. This is what is referred to as stunting.

Stunting is extremely well understood. Harvesting all the large fish in the first few waves is meaningless to future fishing success. The writing is already on the wall that billions of 4-6 inchers is all that will soon remain.

So that is why the fishing sucks...as any remaining fish are so overwhelmed by the hordes of stunted fish that the odds are strongly against them ever reaching your hook before the small guys get there.

By the time the perch were of sufficient size and in sufficient numbers to catch it was only a matter of a year or two before the mass numbers of smaller fish overwhelmed the lake.

Now with the food all gone...the lake is crap for trout and crap for perch.

Great job who ever put the perch in there...great job indeed.

You've just explained what stunting is in maybe a small pond with a very limited food source. You got to realize hassie has huge shallow forge base. It takes more then a couple generations to stunt out a lake and use up all the lake resources. I’m not staying it wouldn’t of stunted eventually. But that was still years away from happening.

[DuckBrat]

Originally Posted by J.B.

perch are largely a forage fish where they occur naturally. usually there is some combination of pike, walleye, and burbot keeping the population in check. the lakes where the over population occurs are stocked trout ponds, where both fish compete for the same food base.

the opposite end of the spectrum is pine coulee resivour. it has been stocked with walleye, but there isnt a legal fish in the lake. there is very little forage fish in the lake, but both walleye and burbot are present. if perch were to be introduced to this lake, my bet is that it would have a positive effect on the whole fishery by increasin the foodbase available for walleye...

This theory would help Pigeon Lake as well as its perch stock has been decimated by the poor lake management. If all these bucket brigaders would just take there perch to pigeon and lay off the trout sloughs. Thinking out loud, please don't do it as you run the risk of transferring disease from lake to lake. Leave the stocking to the one's who actually have an education.

[Sundancefisher]

Originally Posted by C@RN@GE

You've just explained what stunting is in maybe a small pond with a very limited food source. You got to realize hassie has huge shallow forge base. It takes more then a couple generations to stunt out a lake and use up all the lake resources. I’m not staying it wouldn’t of stunted eventually. But that was still years away from happening.

DUDE... It does NOT HAVE AN UNLIMITED FORAGE BASE. For the perch in that size of lake to have a population large enough to be fishable to a degree that attracts 100 cars has to have been in there for a longer time that apparently you are prepared to accept.

Therefore let's just agree to disagree. Clearly to me it is obvious that a large, large number of large fish were in there. These are not the first stocked fish but probably the 8th or ninth successful spawning year which to me probably means the perch were there for at least 14 years..if not 18. Could be less depending upon how many were stocked initially. That means that generationally speaking millions of perch spawned in the years leading up to when you figured there was no problem. The shear fact that millions of 4 incher are there now should be a slap in the face to whatever argument you are trying to put forth as logical.

Sorry...I can't buy your fish fantasy here... The reality is that the lake is stunted.

Last year our average size was 6 inches. Next year would probably be 5.5 and smaller in later years until average size is 4 inches. With our netting...and a summers growth we are at 8 inches. If we nail them hard again with netting next year we can hopefully get the average size back over 9 inches.

For a lake Hasses size you would need to net probably 1 million a year to dent the problem.

Sadly Hasse is a doomed fishery.

[Sundancefisher]

Originally Posted by DuckBrat

This theory would help Pigeon Lake as well as its perch stock has been decimated by the poor lake management. If all these bucket brigaders would just take there perch to pigeon and lay off the trout sloughs. Thinking out loud, please don't do it as you run the risk of transferring disease from lake to lake. Leave the stocking to the one's who actually have an education.

Encouraging this behavior is obviously irresponsible...even when just "thinking out loud". Some numb nut will read your post the wrong way.

Harvesting walleye will help...but eventually the balance will be restored just like any other pike, walleye, perch, whitefish lake in North America. People just don't have the patience to wait understandably some times.

[Wulfespirit]

Originally Posted by Sundancefisher

Well...over harvest of large fish in a natural lake can cause these problems. Netting, fishing, poor recruitment etc. Stocking walleye and letting them go nuts will affect the balance.

Hard to say but I have seen yearly changes with lake whitefish occur naturally also. Some years there is awesome recruitment...other years there is a poor year class. The actual reasons are probably outside the scope for biologists to pin down often.

The Bow River also sees this sort of thing happen.

Sun

The lakes I'm referring to were not stocked with walleye. In the 90s and prior, they had good quality populations of walleye and pike (great size ranges with some trophy class ones around). When SRD dropped the bomb on walleye and pike harvesting, their numbers noticably increased within a few years while the size ranges narrowed and most started to fall into the 'medium' size category. As this was going on, there was a steady drop in perch numbers that seemed to be almost perfectly proportional to the increase in predators. By the time Y2K rolled around, you started having many days when you could hammer a medium pike or walleye on every cast while finding perch was getting quite difficult. Fast forward to now and the perch on these lakes are nearly gone while predator numbers are still insanely high and seemingly suffer from limited growth rates.

This has happened on -four- lakes I used to (and still do to some extent) fish very regularly. Given that the pattern was pretty much identical on all four, I don't know how many other factors I'd buy into. If you're curious about the lakes, feel free to PM me.. but speaking with others, the -same- pattern has emerged on other lakes too (that I don't fish).

[fluxcore]

Does anyone know what happened to HPF? I would like to ask him a few questions

[Wulfespirit]

Originally Posted by C@RN@GE

You've just explained what stunting is in maybe a small pond with a very limited food source. You got to realize hassie has huge shallow forge base. It takes more then a couple generations to stunt out a lake and use up all the lake resources. I’m not staying it wouldn’t of stunted eventually. But that was still years away from happening.

Hasse isn't much bigger than a pond. If you think it is, you haven't been out to many lakes. Calling Hasse a lake is really pushing it.

[Wulfespirit]

Originally Posted by fluxcore

Does anyone know what happened to HPF? I would like to ask him a few questions

Who do you think Carnage is?

[C@RN@GE]

Originally Posted by Sundancefisher

Dude...common sense would prove it if you can't see the logic in the science. Do you think there is a automatic unlimited perch feeder at the bottom of Hasse?

Ummmm.... NO!

Perch just keep on reproducing. They don't stop unless you have been fitting them with little perch condoms when no one was looking.

If you ever took a biology class...just do a little math. If a bath tub has 10 leeches and a fish needs one a year to live and grow and a leech reproduces once a year and has 1 baby...how many perch can the bath tub hold just based upon food. Now have 2 perch in the tub...have them have 10 babies a year and then the 22 have 10 babies and then the 220 have 10 babies and so on...what happens.

Nature will have perch keep cranking out babies until the whole lake is totally full to over flowing.

Figure out a 8 inch perch can have 30,000 eggs...a 14 inch perch 250,000 eggs. With very limited predation...how fast does a population grow?

Just say to yourself one main point...the forage base is not unlimited. 100 cars a day can not do enough damage on a perch population that size.

On our tiny lake in Calgary we netted 32,000 perch. Last year I could catch 100 a day easy. This year...I can catch 100 a day easy.

100 cars a day at 15 perch a day would take about 19 - 8 inch females babies a year. Do you think only 19 females are laying eggs. Figure if only 200,000 females are laying eggs...and at 8 inches so say 30,000 eggs. Then figure only 5% survive even though there is no real predation.

How many new perch are coming into the system? 300 million? Say only 10% of those females laid eggs. That is 30 million babies? Do you think harvest 500,000 perch a year will matter or stop stunting.

Please give you head a shake.

Cheers

Sun

Your assuming that all of them will live. Mostly likely less then 0.1 percent will probably hatch. 98 percent of perch in hassie are under 6 inches. With most of them hovering around 3-4 inches. Most 4 inch perch aren’t going to spawn. 5-6 inch perch have way lower egg counts then bigger perch and have a higher mortality rate. Which equals way less amount of perch overall.

[Wulfespirit]

Originally Posted by C@RN@GE

Your assuming that all of them will live. Mostly likely less then 0.1 percent will probably hatch. 98 percent of perch in hassie are under 6 inches. With most of them hovering around 3-4 inches. Most 4 inch perch aren’t going to spawn. 5-6 inch perch have way lower egg counts then bigger perch and have a higher mortality rate. Which equals way less amount of perch overall.

Your logic doesn't line up with reality. Despite the lake being a parking lot every winter, everyone and anyone is capable of catching 50 tiny perch basically anywhere on that lake on any given day. If the overall number of these perch wasn't so blatantly huge, you might have a point.. but that's not the case. Even with a crappy spawn, those little stunted perch aren't getting removed in anywhere near enough numbers to stop the stunting cycle.

As Sundance has stated, regardless of whether your evil old men filled there freezers there or not, the lake would be in exactly the same state as its in now.

[hockey1099]

Originally Posted by C@RN@GE

Hassie went from being full of 12 inch perch to under 6 inch perch in a year. Sound like everything over 6 inches died off that year. Has nothing to do with the 30 plus vehicles on it every day. Or the fact that as soon as one is keep able it is kept. But nope there stunted for sure. Same with spring before it winterkilled. 5-7 years ago u could catch 12+inch perch and some massive trout out of there. Then a couple of post showed up and it went from being a amazing fishery to a lake with small trout and 5 inch perch in less then a year. Then people that followed the post assume its stunted. Ignoring the fact there’s 50 to 100 people on these lakes everyday looking for something to keep. Mons use to be a great lake for bigger perch and pike. Same thing happened people post it gets fished out people that follow the post assume it stunted. I’m not saying lakes didn't stunt. But it takes a lot longer then a couple years.

I dont buy your theory. Its not like Hasse, Star, Spring Chickakoo, Sauer or any of the other trout lakes in and around edmonton were not know prior to someone posting about them on this or any other forum. Population growth of a species like perch in the face of no predators is exponential. Thus a population can stunt in one year. A year of anglers taking out all of the large fish will eliminate them from the lake and all that remains is the younger stunted population. Two once a stunted population developes the larger fish will have difficulties finding enough food and thus will either die or become thinner. Thus bye bye 12" inch humpbacks and hello skinny 12" perch and hello 6" inch perch.

On a final note all of the Stocked Pothole lakes are put and take lakes for trout. Non are intended to produce trophy trout. Any lunkers that have been caught are flukes. Almost all of these lakes are prown to winter and or summer kills. Angling pressure is sort of irrelivent in a put and take fishery. The reason the fish are put there are to be taken not to allow you or me to catch large trout.

[TJG]

Originally Posted by Sundancefisher

If you don't understand the topic...please don't post. You clearly are not thinking like a normal person to this regard.

We are not talking about Gull, Pigeon, Buck, Sylvan, Wabamun blah blah blah... Pot hole lakes can not support perch as a sport fish. Get it? Don't get it...does not matter. Clearly you have a fascination with trying to provoke without any real points of debate. Pure crap...does not make for a thread.

If you believe illegally stocking perch in a pot hole trout lake is a good thing...then get your head out of your....

Cheers

Sun

If u hv a guard at the gate to this trout heaven, the only way someone
could plant perch in there would be to live there.
[If you believe illegally stocking perch in a pot hole trout lake is a good thing...then get your head out of your....]
Don't put words in my mouth or you'll find my boot up ur arse.
Go somewhere else to practice your amateur biology.

[Freedom55]

Originally Posted by TJG

If u hv a guard at the gate to this trout heaven, the only way someone
could plant perch in there would be to live there.
[If you believe illegally stocking perch in a pot hole trout lake is a good thing...then get your head out of your....]
Don't put words in my mouth or you'll find my boot up ur arse.
Go somewhere else to practice your amateur biology.

This is the legend of the pond: 2 boys got on their bicycles and peddled out to an unnamed lake and caught a mess o' perch. Neither boy had a truck load of electronic gear or pricey G.Loomis rods. Not bothering with shore lunch (they had to get home for supper) they peddled to their community and decided that the bike ride out to their fabulous (mythical) fishing hole in southern Alberta was too long and besides, they were always late for supper.
"Aha" said the older boy. "Let's secretly dump this pail of tiny perch that survived a 6 hour bicycle ride into Kevin's private lake and we can stop this 12 hour marathon every time we need a perch feed". The younger boy, on his way to becoming a marine biologist and knowing that this pail of fish would soon number in the billions, disagreed but he was too small to have his way and, too late, the bucket of perch went into Dave's pond and now every sun dance fisher person hates kids and anyone else who disagrees with Kevin.
But what the hay? Who else has a private fish factory right outside their bedroom window? Or a 'cause celibre' to go on (and on) about?
The boys? They went on to become accomplished trouble-makers and gave up on fishing entirely. Too many grown-ups. That's the way I heard it anyway.
"Did I say that?I didn't mean it.I'm just goofing around, that's all!"
BTW. Happy New Year everyone. Tight lines and happy trails.

[Geezle]

Originally Posted by DarkAisling

You are 100% correct, and I was being a little facetious (but just a "little"). Certainly I can see how they'd be a great lunch for other fish: pike and walleye, in particular. A limited perch population could be a great thing at PCR, where the walleye have few options to fill their little empty tummies. I'm sure there are other lakes where a perch population could improve conditions.

If just seems like a perch population is hard to balance. Is there anything else that can ruin a lake the way perch can? I've never heard of a stunted trout population in a lake.

Right, but again we're looking at stocked vs. naturally occuring perch.

The more I think about it, I think the fishery here in AB could have a lot to do with it as well. There's so much pressure on so few bodies of fishable water that the native populations (or what's left of them) are just right out of whack.

I guess I'm looking more at the way things are back where I'm from in SK. I've fished in a number of lakes that have healthy natural perch populations, but there are also plenty of predators to keep them in check, and plenty of food to go around (larger lakes).

This also gets me thinking...is perch overpopulation limited to just the smaller potholes where there is less of a forage base?