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As per the Shah Lake thread, I've been interested in compiling a list of lakes containing healthy perch populations. Does such a list already exist? If it does, I would think its not complete in any event.
I like the idea of refocusing pressure from trout to panfish and bass, which not only helps the trout but generally provides higher success rates and therefore new passionate fisher-persons.
Anyone want to contribute?
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From what I've been able to gather, yellow perch are present in many APP lakes... a limited list is in the notes in these fishing reports.
Since the preferred temperature range of perch is 17.6 to 25°C, that separates them from trout, where their upper limit most likely won't overlap much with perch.
Summertime trolling close to shore should be a good way to find them, since the trout will be deeper, and perch will be inshore feeding on insect larvae and small fish.
PS... The Algonquin Fisheries Assessment Unit near the east gate might be able to help out if you explain that this info could help relieve fishing pressure on trout... although with the limited funding they have these days, don't expect too much. Still, overfishing is a problem in the easy-access lakes so maybe they'd be willing to spend some time on this, maybe even publish a pamphlet if the potential is there. Good luck.
Last edited by frozentripper (10/28/2015 10:46 am)
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You're probably right that any listing of perch lakes that exists would be incomplete, and even if complete would become out of date as there are, unforunately, cases of perch introduction into non-native lakes (eg. Louisa, I believe). You can use the Fish ON-Line tool ( ) to check lakes for perch, or click on "Fish Species" and do a search for yellow perch within a certain radius of a certain location*, but it does have inaccuracies. The MNR has in the past published species atlases for various fishes which are listings of waterbodies in each district that hold the species; I don't know if there was one for perch but in any case the atlases don't seem to be available online anymore. The Lake Depth Maps of Algonquin Provincial Park booklet has full species inventories for the lakes it maps, but that's only a couple of dozen lakes. The MOE's sport fish consumtion guide has results for perch in Timberwolf, Redrock, Dickson, Lavielle, and White Partridge, but they only sample a handful of lakes in the park and don't sample every species in the lake (often just the most popular ones).
For my part, I've seen a thick school of perch on Ragged and caught one incidentally on Booth. All were quite small. The biggest panfish I've ever caught in the park was a pumpkinseed on Byers.
*Tip on searching Fish ON-Line: if you enter the location as "algonquin park" it will measure from Highway 60 at Cache Lake, but if you enter it as "algonquin provincial park" it uses what is probably the geographic centre of the park, just east of Big Crow Lake. Using the latter and entering 50 km as the distance gives you a radius covering most of the park except the extreme east and south.
Last edited by DanPM (10/28/2015 10:46 am)
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Good initiative!
I'm not a fisheries expert, but there is also a big difference between lakes with a "sporting" perch population, and those with tiny stunted fish you could only hope to snag on occasion.
Perch (if not wormy) are arguably the sweetest tasting fish in the province, IF you can find enough worth cleaning.
We got a real nice one in Billy this past weekend, and I'd be willing to bet they are in all of the splake lakes, as for some reason, splake love to feed on perch, and can hold up against them much better than specks from the MNR publications I've read . . .
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My wife's favourite eating fish.
Thanks for the help and encouragement. Should be interesting
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i have caught some big perch outta penn lake over the years, in the summer time after mid night with a lucky strike banshee spoon and half a worm,,,,
however white fish are the best eating in my opinion and should be ready to catch soon, when the ice starts.
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I have to agree with you there. Whitefish is one of my favourite as well, but it's one species I've never caught myself.
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Update, since it's in front of me now: the species table in the Lake Depth Maps book lists perch in most of the lakes it includes -- Brewer, Cache, Canisbay, Canoe, Costello, Dickson, Found, Happy Isle, Kearney, Lavielle, Opeongo, Redrock, Rock, Smoke, Source, Tea, Timberwolf, Lo2R, Whitefish and White Partridge. The only lakes included in the listing that aren't shown as having perch are Little Crooked, Louisa and Westward. And I've heard there have been perch found in Louisa recently.
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Thanks Dan, that's a great start.
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We've caught some nice sized Yellow Perch in Lavieille. I concur about the quality of their meat - one of my favorite freshwater species to eat. Light, flaky morsels that can be cooked in a variety of ways and take seasoning well also.
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Size definitely matters, so knowing which lakes produce big perch is important too. On the other hand, I remember when I was a kid catching small perch in our smelt nets on Lake Simcoe and we ate them too. Focusing on panfish for food is a matter of resetting our mindset. I've started eating pumpkinseeds and bluegills from my local small lake and I'm impressed. Of course, other cultures, including Americans, are way ahead of us Ontarions in this regard.
Last edited by My Self Reliance (10/30/2015 6:56 am)
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Pumpkinseed to me taste as good as perch, maybe slightly sweeter, but perch have a nicer, firmer texture and are easier to clean. Rock bass don't taste as good, but no worse than largemouth/smallmouth. I've eaten rock bass out of the Madawaska in the park and some big ones out of the Toronto harbour.
When an afternoon of fishing resulted in a largemouth and a perch for the campfire, the bass was dinner and the perch was dessert.
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Lavieille where it meets crow bay has a good perch population just inside the bay. Spoke with a guy who fished the area for 30+ years and he mentioned when the perch show up in the spring the brookies move out into the main body of the lake. Not really relevant I guess but I thought it was interesting, Seemed to be true though we fished small tubes tipped with worms and the brookies were hitting early in the week and by the end of the weed it was mainly perch, if we targeted them would have been easy to get a good feed.
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ahubbs wrote:
Lavieille where it meets crow bay has a good perch population just inside the bay. Spoke with a guy who fished the area for 30+ years and he mentioned when the perch show up in the spring the brookies move out into the main body of the lake. Not really relevant I guess but I thought it was interesting, Seemed to be true though we fished small tubes tipped with worms and the brookies were hitting early in the week and by the end of the weed it was mainly perch, if we targeted them would have been easy to get a good feed.
Good information, I think I'll link to this thread on my blog page
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penn lake after dark, nice ones, and lots of them.
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