Total White Perch Harvest graph

[jbritch]

For Hardliner: here's the graph of the white perch harvests.  Note that the regression line has positive slope indicating increasing harvests, generally.

I'm out of time right now but to make things easier to understand year 1 on the horizontal axis is 1998.  You can see an incredible jump on year 17, that would be 2015.  What could explain that?  The steep slope is troubling for me as I don't care to catch white perch; will the white perch end up being the dominate species caught?  If so, why are the last two years so dramatically less?  Are they going away or being impacted by the fishing pressure or just being underreported?

[lowaccord66]

Awesome share.  Thanks!

[VTMatt]

For Hardliner: here's the graph of the white perch harvests.  Note that the regression line has positive slope indicating increasing harvests, generally.

I'm out of time right now but to make things easier to understand year 1 on the horizontal axis is 1998.  You can see an incredible jump on year 17, that would be 2015.  What could explain that?  The steep slope is troubling for me as I don't care to catch white perch; will the white perch end up being the dominate species caught?  If so, why are the last two years so dramatically less?  Are they going away or being impacted by the fishing pressure or just being underreported?

They invade a new part of the lake, populations boom and then they can't sustain high numbers so populations drop and even out. We are seeing them even out.

[NHHARDWATER]

Thanks for all of this info JBritch.

so many variables in why the numbers fall the way they do.
For myself, and a few of my fishing friends, we go to Champlain to fill our freezers with whites, not to sell them. My wife and kids love to eat them, so its what I go for in the late season. They make for a really fun day, and the huge schools (when found) help to instill the love for ice fishing into my 8 year old.

[mudchuck]

Thanks for all of this info JBritch.

so many variables in why the numbers fall the way they do.
For myself, and a few of my fishing friends, we go to Champlain to fill our freezers with whites, not to sell them. My wife and kids love to eat them, so its what I go for in the late season. They make for a really fun day, and the huge schools (when found) help to instill the love for ice fishing into my 8 year old.

ditto, not fishing to sell them, they're fun to catch, great to take newbies out to get into them and see how their faces all light up when they're on them and more importantly for me, catch enough to get over 20# boneless/skinless fillets for an annual fish fry at work. I make that quota every year and then some, so we have some in the home freezer too to thaw & eat until next time around.

[Panfish hauler]

 The 2 high harvest years where years we had ice late into April the last 2 years and this year the ice got sketchy early and the had not come into the bays yet. They will also cycle up and down all fish do.

[Champlain Islander]

I would say if anyone understands the cycles of panfish over time it is you hauler.

[LittleFishin]

I was told that they were removing lots of weeds from St Albans bay last summer... Could this cause the large schools to not be stacking in there?

[mudchuck]

I was told that they were removing lots of weeds from St Albans bay last summer... Could this cause the large schools to not be stacking in there?

Normally whites don't congregate in the weeds like bream & yellows do, however the weed pulling could affect baitfish that whites eat, so it might have some impact.

[Champlain Islander]

There is another bay in the Islands they have been weed harvesting the past 4 or 5 years and IMO the fishing declined and I don't know why.

[LittleFishin]

I am no biologist but I would think when you look down the hole and see nothing but zebra mussels and no weeds = bad fishing.  So to keep on removing them....? No matter what I will keep fishing but this year was a tough one on the ice. Freezer is empty!