Bait Profile - Yellow Perch
Yellow perch (perca flavescens) sort of pull double duty in the fish world. We often think of them as a fish that we really like to catch and eat. The reality is that there are A LOT more small perch than big perch and in many fisheries they are a large part of the forage base. You would be hard pressed to find a lure manufacturer that didn’t have at least one perch pattern bait. You also won’t find a predator fish that doesn’t prey on yellow perch.
They are significant in so many different types of fisheries in Michigan. Just about every sizable body of water including the Great Lakes has a population of perch. However perch are so variable between fisheries. I’ve seen places where predation is so high that you almost never see small perch and places where there are just so many perch that literal clouds of small perch are the only perch you see. I don’t even know how some individuals get big enough to reproduce. They just can’t get enough food to bulk up in those fisheries. If you get a close look at perch from those places, you’ll notice how emaciated they look and I think many of them succumb to the challenges of surviving winter. I’ve also seen many fisheries with multiple year classes of healthy fish.
One thing that differs with perch compared to many other forage species is that they can be an important prey item year round. Many fisheries have abundant year classes that are just the right size to be eaten. Eventually some year classes will outgrow predation from most species but a perch under 6 inches can be vulnerable to so many things. Young of year perch in the fall are almost too small to be a main attraction in my experience. It seems like those fish that are the next size up with some more meat on their bones are a better food source for most predators. It is always wise to notice where those fish are congregating or notice if they have any points in time where they make a migration. I have seen a push of perch into rivers in both the spring and fall, following the perch has put me on some great bass bites in the past.
Perch can really be a factor at large open fisheries like Lake St. Clair. Smallmouth will roam with the perch schools and utilize them as a main part of their diet. I notice them being a big deal further north in Michigan too. I feel like the forage base further north can be less diverse. You often have lakes with less bluegills and more rock bass and perch. Perch also really like aquatic vegetation and it seems having some of that around can contribute to a healthy fishery.
One thing about perch is that they vary their diets quite a bit. As they age they do get more piscivorous (keying in on fish). But as someone who has looked at a lot of different perch diets for work. Zooplankton can play a huge role especially in the smaller fish and even in adults as sometimes they key in on a large invasive zooplankton the spiny water flea (bythotrephes longimanus). Many different invertebrates are common diet items as well. One interesting perch “feeding window” that I’ve come across on Muskegon Lake is that in late fall/early winter they will really key in on young of year bluegills. In certain areas almost every perch that is big enough to take a fillet knife will be packed with young of year bluegills.
