Article on yellow perch populations

[West Basin]

It still wonders me a bit how even today, with all the increased (and getting much better) fisheries science, that some folks don't believe the research. They don't believe what the biologists are telling us.

No science is perfect, and conclusions are often time sensitive (meaning they are only good for a short period of time, conditions change and so might the results of future monitoring) and sometimes are later proven either incorrect or only partially correct. It the case here of Lake Erie's yellow perch populations, the fisheries science is there. They are not working with a short timeline of data. They are working with data and trends going back to the 1950's and even earlier. This isn't the first time in fisheries history that catch rates have fallen while the target species population hasn't, or even if it did the decline in catch rates doesn't match. That appears to be the case here. If perch numbers overall are down, that still doesn't entirely explain the huge drop in recreational catch rates. The perch are behaving differently due to environmental changes. If you want to catch yellow perch, at least in the current conditions, you'll have to adapt and find new ways to fish for them.

We may see some shift of yellow perch fishing from late summer and fall to late spring and early summer, as the invertebrate populations haven't increased yet and the perch are left with mostly fish to feed on.

[branhamautomotive]

Catch rates and size were very good late oct and early Nov, the netters out in front of huron had alot of issues getting fish as well.

Be interesting to see

[Eyezcrazy]

WB...I am not a doubter of science or data but I do think sometimes the ODNR misleads us in order to maintain sales. The current deer population situation is another prime example. For years we were told the deer population wasn’t dropping and the lack of hunter success was weather or access dependent. Now they have changed bag limits to help increase the heard. But why if that wasn’t the problem?