# what happened to the perch?



## nickslandscaping (Jan 19, 2005)

sanchez res in colorado was the best perch fishing i have ever seen. back in the day we could catch hundreds in one day now your lucky to catch even one a day. anyone fished there before? I don't know what happened to the perch. but there not there.


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## BassMaster15 (Jun 6, 2005)

I always fished Lake Alice in south dakota for perch and now they just arn't there anymore i also wonder what happened to them! I think that its possible that they could of been fished out and nobody did anything about it! Mabey its possible they were fished out of your lake to or mabye the vegetation changed! :-?


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## atec (Jan 29, 2006)

Some non-scientific speculation on the decline of Perch in most area is due to water changes (habitat) and the possible introduction of alien/foreign species . It is only my opinion that in some larger lakes where they have caught only larger Perch for some period of time , declines might be due to larger game fish population growth . In Lake Michigan I would suggest the King Salmon and Cohoe stocked for the lucrative game fishing charter bussiness . Indiana did massive stockings through the 70's and 80's . I also atribute this to the decline in smelt as well . When I was young we never caught Salmon in our smelt nets . Today the big fish are ravaging the smelt on their spawning beds . This is only my theory non-substantiated . But here are a couple of links .http://www.legis.state.wi.us/assembly/a ... ecline.htm
Spencer Black: Wisconsin Fishing for Some Answers on Perch Declinehttp://www.seagrant.wisc.edu/com ... pects.html
Top Suspects Cleared in Yellow Perch Decline / UW Sea Grant


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## Invector (Jan 13, 2006)

I spent sometime in that area and when I left the water was looking very low on that lake. I seen some of the pike that came out of that lake and I would say that they took their fair shair of perch. Pluse the size of eyes were doing munching. But I would say the lack of water had somthign to do with it. Would not over look the fact of summer or winter kills. Look at how low the rio is there in Alamosa. Back in 02 and 01 things were looking very shotty there.


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## dullarrow (Feb 24, 2006)

The decline in perch and other fish may be due to the large increase in cormorants (those ugly fish eating ducks) that apparently have been caught in fishing nets as deep as 85'. Does anyone know if any studies have been done to determine their impact on the fish populations?


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## Invector (Jan 13, 2006)

It has yet been proven the the deep decline in the fish populations was form those birds. Yes they do take out fish, but look at how many fish were taken out by anglers who could not say no to keeping them. Constant take dropes fish population fast and almost as low as a winter or summer kill. think about that.


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## dullarrow (Feb 24, 2006)

Invector,
Thanks for the reply. I have thought about the fact that some Anglers take more than their share of fish. However, in my opinon we need to look at "what's changed since the decrease in numbers of fish". I believe the trend of some Anglers taking too many fish has been going on for many decades. Wereas, the Cormorants are something new that has been introduced into the eco system. I'll stay with my opinion that the birds are making a huge impact in the decline of fish populations. You are right, though, my theory hasn't been proven -yet. Happy fishing!


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## Invector (Jan 13, 2006)

Actually the birds were here before we were. The thing is a natural preditor like those birds will target fish yes but small fish. They wont eat a 1lb perch or even a half pound for that matter. Its the fact when anglers take too much the fish population goes down hard. They then complain as far as there are no fish left and birds are eating them all, but there are many fish left in the lake but are small and not many people would keep them. At times seeing a large number of birds might mean a good number of small fish meaning good fishing could come back but those fish need to grow up again. Here in ND our lakes that use to produce big perch have been fished out, however, low water resulted in winter kill. In those lakes the fish were to die anyways so it does not look so bad when fishing the year before or the year of the kill was poor. Think of it this way though. Take a lake that wont winter kill. Say theres 1 million fish in there. Only say 1-2% of those fish are what the anglers want. That means a small percent is being targeted by anglers...10-20k if I did my math right. That wont take many people long to catch those fish and remove them. Rememebr that there are going to be more small fish then large due to habitat food etc. Now you take a lake that at any given time there are more anglers then birds (ie hobart lakes) you can see that there are going to be few (keepers) coming out of those lakes after one or two years. When you get down to it birds dont put much of a dent into a fish population. Now lets look at Leech Lake and the bird killings they did. Out of a 5000 birds they took out 3-4k of them. Now yes that alot of birds and not that many people would be out on the lake at one time. The reason was the poeple were complaining that the birds were eating all they eyes in the lake. Not true. These cormerants were targeting almost any fish they could actually eat. They would rather eat say a minnow type fish and not somthing with the big spinious rays on the dorsal fins. But because the public out cry was so great the DNR obliged them and used this as sort of a test to see if limiting the popluation of the birds would have a positive effect on the population of eyes. We studied this sort of thing when in college and for the most part when you get a small very shallow pond and have several types of birds (herons, cormerants, pelicans, merganzers, loons, ect.) would the birds have any great effect on them. The major affect I say birds have is spreading disease to the fish. Fish eating birds are a big reason the perch and some small sunfish in the lakes in MN have those nice black spots all overthem. Fish just happen to be a step in the life cycle of a worm that lives in the gut of fish eating birds. In fish the grub has very little affect on the fish. But we also get other worms that live in the meat of the fish and freak out most anglers when they find them uke: From what I have found, read, and been tought, birds dont make much of a differance in fish populations, they just help make things that are bad a little worse and are good things to blame then ourselves.


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## duckduck...goose! (Jan 4, 2006)

they all gone


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## atec (Jan 29, 2006)

We did a little better on Lake MI since the first of this post . You can't forsee the best days though . 
NOTE : There are far fewer fishermen on the big lake these days taking fish. Used to be twice as many .

There are new revelations though on fish killing disease . Something we may or may not have caused . May be a part of evolution ?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13958138/
Deadly fish virus spreads in Northeast - LiveScience - MSNBC.com

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 094531.htm
ScienceDaily: Fish Virus In Northeast Spreading To Other Fish Species

If these links don't latch up for you - Google " Fish Virus " .

" Drifting in a sultry day on the sluggish waters of the pond , I almost cease to live and begin to be ". - Henry David Thoreau


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