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they over fished it the last few years and put too much pressure on the lake
I have looked back at some of my Silver Lake posts from 2007 when I joined Ice Shanty. I was catching a lot of 5"-7" perch back then and a doz to doz and a half of 8"-11" to take home, very few perch below 5". This year I caught a lot of perch under 5" and only a 1/2 doz to 10 perch 8"-10" to take home.The question isn't whether this lake is fished out but why the perch aren't growing. A well fed perch in a balance ecological system grows to 8" in 4 years. Why haven't those 5"-7" perch from 2007 grown into good size fish by now? And it's not because there fished out, look at a camera sometime. I believe it is over population. I think more fish should be taken from this lake. Chautauqua Lake has the same problem, you can catch 150 to 200 perch in a 10 hr. day and only keep 30-40 perch 8"-10". Anyone know a good DEC fish biologists, maybe he could give us the answer? By the way, I have perch fished WNY since 1965 and been very successful over the years.
Maybe a walleye (although I hear there are many) or tiger musky stocking. It is true about the dink perch, very very few of them grow to the desired size.
Wrong. The fish are there, just not where we want them to be. Low, clear water conditions this past late summer/early fall pushed a lot of the fish deeper than usual, combined with a HUGE amount of small perch for forage in the main basin and a never ending ending supply of bloodworms in the mucky bottom that makes up 99% of that main basin, they never had a reason to come back up to more fishable water. It didn't help that the wind this fall when the water was still open beat the snot out of the weed cover on the flats, turning the water murky, which stayed murky until ice up. Then tons of snow got dumped on the lake cutting off any light needed for healthy weeds and you have a dead zone from 0'-12' of water this year. Roaming, well fed fish are difficult to find and catch, and the fact you have to beat the thousands of aggresive dink perch away makes for tough fishing. I was catching 100s of bluegills a day in mid november when I could find them out in the abyss. They are still there.
According to the last several dec shockings there is an over abundance of walleye and the pike population is ridiculous! Definitely no lack of preditors in the lake...Imo that could be why the eyes are so big in this small lake and pike reach 40+"...plus they get some toad bass they are all well fed