PDA

View Full Version : Schooling fish



Ironfish
03-27-2008, 04:18 AM
Hi All,

I found out about yellow perch. Since they are schooling fish they like round tanks, They will go round and round. When I transfered them from the round swimming pool ( a leek in the bottom of the tank I couldn't stop) to the totes, they went straight to the corners and stayed there on the bottom.
The gold fish and blue gills go up and down in the column of water. They do very well in totes.
Also, the perch like to hide. I keep a net bag filled with bird netting tied off to float. The perch will hide under them. The bags do two things. First hiding place for fish. Second, the bags will pick up fine particles in the water. I wash these out every other day. It is worth it for happy fish.

Ironfish

JeffW
02-17-2009, 10:05 AM
We ice fished many years growing up and perch were always a challenge. Sometimes you caught them and many times you went home with only bluegill. Perch like to hang out about 1' off the bottom and stay in schools as you mentioned. They spook easy and will not take the bait so easy like bluegill did. Perch are hard to trick into biting as we would use sneaky bobbers and watch as the perch would lifted the bait up instead of chomping it down and taking off. Even a spring bobber would go up instead of down and floating bobbers would start laying on their side in the ice hole which was a cue to "nail em" but even then you missed often.

Since perch were finicky eaters I came to the conclusion that is why I liked eating them so much. As we cleaned the perch the meat would always be fluffy white so healthy looking as well as we love the taste., even the eggs were delicious if they were orange colored.

It was not uncommon for us to catch a 12" perch at 35-40 feet of water and bluegill hardly ever went that far down. We discovered that perch were unique not like other pan fish they had their own characteristics.

02-19-2009, 09:03 AM
I like fishin' but you can just count me out on the ice fishing. The only thing I would be able to bait the hook with would be "CHILL BUMPS" :mrgreen:

jackalope
02-24-2009, 12:40 AM
The only way i go fishing is to take a half-rack and a good book. The fish don't like my bait, my line, or anything else about me. and I just love to eat them. When I get set up, I'll have the absolute best way to go fishing, just walk over to the Rubbermaid, stick the net in, and bag me one!! I'm told that with some fish, you don't even need a net, they are so trusting they let you pick them up ...... bad idea when I'm hungry!

This is good to know about round tanks v. square/runs/etc. I wasn't aware that it would make a difference. Now to see if I can find out more info about perch. My spouse says she's not about to eat goldfish, even if they are a carp ..... so I'm going to start buying the gray ones and tell her they're minnows :-) ........ Big Minnows!!