Rockport Perch..Good and Bad

[TubeDude]

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Bottom line is that a healthy perch pond should have plenty of nutrients and lots of zooplankton to maintain the bottom part of the food chain.  After that, there needs to be good spawning and recruitment to keep the bigger perch well fed and capable of big spawns.  The circle of life.

Pat, since we did not make our Willard date come to fruition we better be at RP at ice off to help some 11” Perch complete their ‘Circle of life’….in to my death well.
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Prolly not the best time for heavy harvesting.  The perch will be spawning about ice-out and my experience is that they are usually not too active for anglers until summer warms the water back op to over 60.  Best wide-open warm water perch bite is after the young of the year hatchlings get over about 1" long and form those big schools around the shoreline.  July through iceup has always been pretty reliable.  

I fondly reckymember a couple of good days we shared a spot at Echo during that glut period.