In season
Yellow perch and anglers are waiting for a warm spell
Statewide, some 600,000 Pennsylvania anglers were still coming to terms with a trout season without an opening day. But on Pymatuning Reservoir in Crawford County, Lou Crafton of Greenville was sitting in his aluminium boat rocking with the waves and watching bobbers floating off the bow. Late April and early May, he said, is when he begins indulging his passion for perch.
“When the water gets into the mid-40s, the males move into 10 feet over sticks and grass, and I move in over them,” he said. “The good thing about perch is when you find them there’s lots of action and you can’t fish them out. There are too many.”
While trout anglers tried to stay a rod’s length apart, Mr. Crafton was “self-isolating” on Pymatuning. “I had the whole lake to myself,” he said.
The yellow perch is a prolific native of waters from Europe and Eurasia to North America. It is present in most of the habitable waters east of the Rocky Mountains and north of South Carolina, and is indigenous to the Great Lakes and Ohio River system.
Often the first species caught by novice anglers, perch are adaptable, comfortable in stillwater swamps and ponds, swift currents and slow deep pools, park impoundments and open-water lakes. They’re a common bycatch of anglers targeting panfish, walleye and bass, and anglers can fill small coolers with the quality dinner fare without depleting the population.
On Lake Erie, an oversight committee determined the yellow perch population is currently at the maintenance level and decreased the allowable commercial harvest by 8% in 2020. The sport fishing season opened May 1 with no regulatory changes. The daily creel limit remains 30 with no minimum size.
While the walleye population has spiked on Lake Erie, the yellow perch bite has been hit or miss for several years. Many Lake Erie perch anglers call for a minimum harvest size.
Pennsylvania’s inland waters have an open season on yellow perch, no size minimum and a daily limit of 50 combined species including white perch, sunfish, crappies, catfish, rock bass, suckers, carp, white bass, bowfin and other gamefish not otherwise listed.
Unlike some fish, there is not a strong catch-and-release culture associated with yellow perch. It’s dinner food. Mr. Crafton said a minnow under a float is his go-to rig, and he throws back perch too small to produce a nice fillet.
“I catch a few slabs over a foot long. When you’re on them, it’s great,” he said. “But most are smaller. I throw out dinks under about 8 inches.”
Yellow perch are a schooling fish that prefer the company of their own year-class. Small perch under about 5 inches often hide among vegetation or wooden structure. Find midsize perch of 6-9 inches swimming together. Mr. Crafton said whenever he catches two perch too small to fillet, he moves or sets his bobbers deeper.
“Sometimes you find a school where they’re all about 12 inches, maybe with a couple that are bigger,” he said. “They may be deeper or farther from the shore.”
The weather this spring has been tough on pregnant female perch. Every time the water starts to warm and the males advance to the shallows, a cold front rolls through the region and chases them back to deeper water. In lakes and ponds, yellow perch generally spawn in 5-10 feet among vegetation, wood or gravel shorelines. From dusk to dawn, females dart through selected spawning sites accompanied by several males. Eggs are encased in long, transparent and sticky masses that hang from weeds, sticks and rocks. Neither males nor females protect the eggs or fry.
Mike Milvet, owner of Cross Creek Bait Shop in Washington County, said that by this time during most years, perch anglers are finding schools.
“The weather has been a roller coaster. [Perch] are still in prespawn,” he said. “A guy came in the other day with 20-30 perch, but there were a lot of small ones.”
Cross Creek Lake, the 258acre county-owned impoundment near Avella, drops to 60 feet in depth and has a healthy population of predators — largemouth bass, walleye, sauger and channel catfish. Enrolled in the state Fish and Boat Commission’s Panfish Enhancement program, the lake’s many bluegills and crappie are protected up to 9 inches. Mr. Milvet said small and midsize perch are eaten by game fish, and those that reach a foot or more are eaten by anglers.
The county temporarily closed Cross Creek Lake to vehicular traffic for several weeks as a COVID-19 protection. Mr. Milvet said he’s getting a lot of calls from anglers.
“I’m telling them that the lake is open and the perch are trying to spawn,” he said. “A week of good weather should be enough to raise the temperature down where the fish are, and things should get back on track.”