Managing the yellow perch harvest is a complicated process. A lot is factored into it. If you want to read about it, the following document has detailed information.

https://www.glfc.org/pubs/lake_commi...eport_2025.pdf

All methods of harvest, commercial and sport, have an impact. Sport fishing has a much higher TAC (total allowable catch) than commercial fishing. But commercial fishing harvests a higher amount, due to their having much more effective catch methods.

In 2024:
"In years with high TAC, anglers receive 65% of Ohio’s quota and the trap net fishery receives the remaining 35%. In low TAC years, anglers receive a larger share of Ohio’s quota and commercial quotas can be as low as 25%."

"The lakewide harvest of Yellow Perch in 2024 was 3.500 million pounds, or 53% of the total 2024 TAC. This was a 19% decrease from the 2023 harvest of 4.305 million pounds."
Neither commercial nor sport harvested their TAC.

And... the commercial yellow perch size limit is 8 1/2 inches. Imagine what the sport fishing harvest would be if we had the same size regulation.