are perch native?

[JT26]

Does anybody know if perch are native in washington? i hear so much about how lakes arent big enough or dont hve enough food to support them, so it makes me wonder if they are naturally here.

[cavdad45]

No, they are not native fish. They just take over and wipe out the food supply and get stunted.

[iPodrodder]

See the thread in freshwater fishing "Native species of fish in Washington".

[Anglinarcher]

No, they are not native fish. They just take over and wipe out the food supply and get stunted.

Ditto, and I love to eat perch.

It seems that if you have perch and Walleye, perch are held in check. Perch and Bass, the Bass keep them back only if the cover is limited. Perch and trout, the perch win out every time.

Every balanced system that I know of has a mixture of warm and cool species if it is to take care of the perch population. Given a choice, I'd learn to go without perch on my plate.

Oh yea, Bass and perch and bluegill, the perch still win out, no matter what. I can't explain that one.

[zen leecher aka Bill W]

when were perch first stocked in WA?

[Gisteppo]

Actually AA, the best place for a perch IS your plate. The more we minimize their numbers, the more effective the balancing act will be. Long lake in particular has an exploding smallie population. Good thing they taste so good, eh?

E

[Anglinarcher]

Actually AA, the best place for a perch IS your plate. The more we minimize their numbers, the more effective the balancing act will be. Long lake in particular has an exploding smallie population. Good thing they taste so good, eh?

E

You know, you have hit on something. Many many people are caught in the "catch and release" mindset and would never keep a fish. This is not always a good thing.

For example, the Smallies in Roosevelt, and I guess Long (still never fished it), are exploding in population. Soon they will probably run out of food and stunt. Keeping a limit of the smaller smallies would be a good thing. I just wish that smaller for them was 14" and smaller, not 12" and smaller.

Pearch, eat em all.

Walleye at Sprague, I should have kept a lot more than I did.

[Gisteppo]

Archer, name your day for Long, I have weekdays free and am always game to fish.

E

[zen leecher aka Bill W]

Yellow perch and a bunch of other species were introduced to WA state starting around the 1890's.

Just think how different fishing would be without all these introduced species. It would be rainbow trout, cutthroat trout during most of the year and salmon during the spawing runs. It would be sorta like eating hotdogs for lunch every day.

[michaelunbewust]

potholes took the limit off of smallies, and added a limit for perch, to try and get the larger perch back. i have noticed a slight difference in size since the new rules went into effect. no limits on size or quantity of the oversized smallmouth population will help the whole res.

[gpc]

potholes took the limit off of smallies, and added a limit for perch, to try and get the larger perch back. i have noticed a slight difference in size since the new rules went into effect. no limits on size or quantity of the oversized smallmouth population will help the whole res.

This year I noticed way more perch at potholes. Havnt seen that many perch there in a while. I didnt actually catch any nice ones but saw plenty of pictures to prove that its working so far. All the perch were still a pretty decent size, around 7 - 8". I caught A LOT of those and only made it to potholes a handful of times last year, unfortunatly. I also saw some pretty nice stringers taken off the dock of 8" perch or so, not a bad amount of meat when you have a stringer full. Hope its even better next year.

[michaelunbewust]

those habitat boxes volunteers can build for the warmwater project there has paid dividends already in this year alone. all the fisheries there are improving because of it, now, if we can get a ruling on the 400' barrier at the net pens, and, figure out something for the spring slaughter there, the WALLEYE fishery would improve greatly. but it is going to take babysteps, i guess. scootney res. does have larger perch there, but, you have to search pretty good for the schools. ive been fishing potholes since early 70's, and, have always wondered how the perch were introduced there. my granddad built the whole irrigation project, and fished it for years with me, but, never said his thoughts on how they got there. anybodygot any ideas???

[gpc]

those habitat boxes volunteers can build for the warmwater project there has paid dividends already in this year alone. all the fisheries there are improving because of it, now, if we can get a ruling on the 400' barrier at the net pens, and, figure out something for the spring slaughter there, the WALLEYE fishery would improve greatly. but it is going to take babysteps, i guess. scootney res. does have larger perch there, but, you have to search pretty good for the schools. ive been fishing potholes since early 70's, and, have always wondered how the perch were introduced there. my granddad built the whole irrigation project, and fished it for years with me, but, never said his thoughts on how they got there. anybodygot any ideas???

Those boxes have made a huge diffrence. I have never actually got down on the net pen slaughter of walleyes but I know I am missing out on some great fishing. Last winter I was there when the docks were down and we just fished off the gas dock, there was a bass boat jigging for walleye and there were doing pretty well. I know last year the net pens were up longer. They said that the ice was too thick to get food to all the baby trout. They didnt die they just didnt grow. So when they realsed all the trout they were only 5" fish so they left half the pens up longer to give the fish a better chance of survival. Thats weird my great granfather was one of the workers on the dam and both my parents went to mar don their entire life. They said the fishing back then wasnt even comparable to now and they didnt even have the big dock, just the gas dock.

[JT26]

Yellow perch and a bunch of other species were introduced to WA state starting around the 1890's.

Just think how different fishing would be without all these introduced species. It would be rainbow trout, cutthroat trout during most of the year and salmon during the spawing runs. It would be sorta like eating hotdogs for lunch every day.

thats another reason i asked. i thought about it and all i could think of in fresh water were trout.