Male or Female?

[hammerhead]

Townie

I have never seen perch as well fed as those in your pics. Biologists figure a ratio between length and weight and call it C or condition factor, just a numerical way to say how fat they are. I've been messing with perch my whole life and never seen any like those.

[taxi1]

This does bring up a question though. If during winter the female perch are so egg filled, I would assume that means they are close to spawning. Why is it in IL. they close the Lake Michigan perch season in July? They say it is for spawning perch? Do different areas have different spawn times for perch? I could see a few weeks or month difference, but were talking almost a half a year.

The female perch are packed with eggs but they don't actually spawn until March to April or even May at our latitude. Minimum temp is 48 F for the start of spawning. It's later in Lake Michigan because it takes longer for the water to warm up to their preferred spawning temperature due to the size of the lake.

I start sorting broodfish yellow perch in my ponds in late March to April. The males look like runts compared to the females (skinnier and not as long for the same age) and if you squeeze a male at this time he will exude milt. A ripe female will produce eggs up to 30 percent of her body weight.

As far as protecting the species by releasing the females I doubt you would have any effect nor is there any need to. They are a very prolific species and a female can lay up to 20,000 eggs depending on her size. I doubt you could wipe out yellow perch. If anything they have a propensity to stunt if there are too many for the food supply and not enough predators.

[Townie]

Townie

I have never seen perch as well fed as those in your pics. Biologists figure a ratio between length and weight and call it C or condition factor, just a numerical way to say how fat they are. I've been messing with perch my whole life and never seen any like those.

The perch I posted were caught from a deep, clear-water stocked trout pond in MA. Biggest yellows for me 

[flagguy83]

Hope you don't have that problem with the ladys. LOL

[Jeff S]

Someone mentioned the "vent". Venting is about the only real way to check a fish for gender. Female fish have a larger vent hole than the anus. The vent hole is smaller then the anus on a male.
Anus is toward the head of fish and vent is to toward the tail.

If the vent hole is quite larger than the anus, there is a good chance its female.

Not a scientist here, but I do breed tropical fish and its only way to sort some of the species out.

Jeff

[taxi1]

Someone mentioned the "vent". Venting is about the only real way to check a fish for gender. Female fish have a larger vent hole than the anus. The vent hole is smaller then the anus on a male.
Anus is toward the head of fish and vent is to toward the tail.

If the vent hole is quite larger than the anus, there is a good chance its female.

Not a scientist here, but I do breed tropical fish and its only way to sort some of the species out.

Jeff

Depends on the species and how close they are to ovulation doesn't it? Perch are pretty easily sexed but some species you have to insert a catheter tube and extract gametes to be sure. I know bass breeders that will only trust the catheter.

[Jeff S]

Depends on the species and how close they are to ovulation doesn't it? Perch are pretty easily sexed but some species you have to insert a catheter tube and extract gametes to be sure. I know bass breeders that will only trust the catheter.

I guess I should have stated that I was going off of my breeding and venting habits of African Cichlids. However, my understanding is that most fish have the same type of anatomy and most fems will have a larger vent. It
Seems easy enough to research, so I will and see what I can dig up.

[Jeff S]

This doesnt really show how to vent one, but its a good imformative read on the fish.

http://dnr.wi.gov/fish/lakemich/YELLOWPERCH.htm

Jeff

[taxi1]

This doesnt really show how to vent one, but its a good imformative read on the fish.

http://dnr.wi.gov/fish/lakemich/YELLOWPERCH.htm

Jeff

Interesting read.

I don't disagree with you but I no longer trust external signs in fish for sex evaluation. The vent is not always so obvious in some species unless the fish is close to releasing her eggs. Orogenital openings can look obviously different in some species and not in others.

In one of my ponds, only one male that is mistakenly planted, that looks plump enough to be a female, will screw up the goal of a female only perch pond big time.  Been there done that.

You do know some fish can actually mimic the other sex in appearance such as bluegills and sneaker males right?

Conversely here's a customer's female bluegill that looks like a male in appearance. Of course the vent is the dead give away that it's a female full of eggs but this was very close to the release of her eggs.



 

[Jeff S]

Taxi,

Unfortunatley for me, I havent had much experience with local fresh water fish when it comes to sexing and such. I based my ideas on what I use daily with my hobby of tropical fish. Currently I have about 20 tanks set up with largest being 250 gallons with plans of a 650 gal not to far off. Most of the fish I breed actually all that I breed come from Lake Malawi and Tanganyika. Most of the fish I keep and breed show a huge difference from male to female in color, so sexing of them is quite obvious when they are not fry stage. Its the other species that both male and female look the same as adults that cause problems and is when venting is needed. As with many things, its not always 100% but its best we have as of now. I wont bore you with my hobby but one extreme differnece that always gets peoples attention when they see the fish I keep and such is that they are mouth brooders. Ever seen a 4 inch perch size fish have 100 babies in her mouth, spit em out and suck em back up ? Its pretty amazing. The spawning process for them is quite intense and a female holding babies is quite awesome to witness. She knows when its safe to let them out and often sucks em back up if they are in harms way.
On a side note, I have been keeping my surviving minnies in a filtered aquarium after each trip out on the ice. Just one less dozen I have to buy each trip out. Example of how simple it is to sex some of the fish, and then we there are species like the perch  that both sex's look the same.
Neither of these fish are mine posted, but I have a male who looks as nice if not better than the one pictured. I havent been able to find him any ladies yet. I get a lot of my fish shipped right from Africa, most of what I have are wild caught or F1 (first generation of wild caught) which is where the best quailty comes from.
Enjoy and thanks for the read. I will have to post a pic of the "goat" and some of the other mounts I have. No fish yet, odd.
Jeff
EDIT: I know this has been a bit off topic, but these are freshwater fish not salt that has to account for something LOL.

Case in point, a female.


Same fish as a male.

[Kevin23]

Get em drunk and wait for them to take thier tops off.

[Jeff S]

Get em drunk and wait for them to take thier tops off.

Hey no one asked how you spent your Friday night.

[salmonrebel]

If it comes out of the hole,...and it starts cursing at you,...it's a FEMALE!

[taxi1]

Taxi,

Unfortunatley for me, I havent had much experience with local fresh water fish when it comes to sexing and such. I based my ideas on what I use daily with my hobby of tropical fish. Currently I have about 20 tanks set up with largest being 250 gallons with plans of a 650 gal not to far off. Most of the fish I breed actually all that I breed come from Lake Malawi and Tanganyika. Most of the fish I keep and breed show a huge difference from male to female in color, so sexing of them is quite obvious when they are not fry stage. Its the other species that both male and female look the same as adults that cause problems and is when venting is needed. As with many things, its not always 100% but its best we have as of now. I wont bore you with my hobby but one extreme differnece that always gets peoples attention when they see the fish I keep and such is that they are mouth brooders. Ever seen a 4 inch perch size fish have 100 babies in her mouth, spit em out and suck em back up ? Its pretty amazing. The spawning process for them is quite intense and a female holding babies is quite awesome to witness. She knows when its safe to let them out and often sucks em back up if they are in harms way.
On a side note, I have been keeping my surviving minnies in a filtered aquarium after each trip out on the ice. Just one less dozen I have to buy each trip out. Example of how simple it is to sex some of the fish, and then we there are species like the perch  that both sex's look the same.
Neither of these fish are mine posted, but I have a male who looks as nice if not better than the one pictured. I havent been able to find him any ladies yet. I get a lot of my fish shipped right from Africa, most of what I have are wild caught or F1 (first generation of wild caught) which is where the best quailty comes from.
Enjoy and thanks for the read. I will have to post a pic of the "goat" and some of the other mounts I have. No fish yet, odd.
Jeff
EDIT: I know this has been a bit off topic, but these are freshwater fish not salt that has to account for something LOL.

Case in point, a female.
(Image removed from quote.)

Same fish as a male.
(Image removed from quote.)

Not boring to me Jeff. Even though I don't do anything with tropicals I find all aspects of fish culture interesting. I'm excited about building an RAS this winter to quarantine some pumpkinseeds I will get from the wild while I wait for VHS testing of some of them. I will probably set up an aquarium in the future to produce my own talpia (mouth breeders) so I can seasonally control filamentous algae in the ponds. Not sure if you're aware of it but they use them farther south and they really clean the stuff up. Of course they die when temps drop to 50 F. or below so that's why one needs an aquarium to hold over some breeders and produce some for next year.

Are you aware of this website where the members keep native species in aquariums? Some of our native specie are quite colorful like rainbow darters, pumpkinseeds, and longear sunfish. Since I raise fish and have extras and runts I'm considering selling them some for their aquariums.

http://forum.nanfa.org/

[Jeff S]

Tax,

I grew up on a decent fishing lake. Few years back the DNR stocked it with the red-ears and wow what a treat its been. I mainly spring fish and have found many 11 inchers. My brother has about a 3/4-1 acre pond. We started stockin it back in when he had it dug in 97 or so. It now has crappie, walleye, gills, bass and some bullhead. He threw a goldfish/koi in it at about 6 inches. The thing now is about 2 foot and about 8 pounds. It has survived about 5 years now in there. I have a small lake near me that is stocked well with hybrid gills. Dark big bull. Nothing like a fight of a good gill on a 5 foot ultralight. The sunny's here I have caught some nice ones but they are rare. The gills in spawn time are abundant. Its strange it seems the red-ears seem to stay in a couple areas during spawn, but not any gills make beds in same spot with them. Can go to couple diff spots and limit on red-ears only and go to others and not see one.

Talapia are a nice fish, a Cichlid actually so I am pretty familiar with them. We do have a few Cichlids here in the US and South America, but not my cup of tea. I never thought of keepin a local fish, but I have a friend with a 1300 gallon tank (yes 1300 gallons) and he keeps all sorts of stuff in it. Central and South American cichlids, he has some cats, some bass, and lots of gills. He takes what ever people dont want and calls it a rescue.
With me always moving fish and I have so many tanks I should fire one up for some local fry and see what I can come up with. I had some fry from one of my mating pairs that I was able to move to a grow out tank, and tossed my extra minnows in. My brother laughed at me when I showed him, he figured I had left em on the ice knowing I wasnt going fishin for a few days due to the weather. Tryin to figure out where the couple 6 inch suckers are from since we didnt have any tip ups out.

Jeff

[salmonrebel]

If it doesn't curse at you, when it comes out of the hole, and it has eggs in it when you fillet it,...you should of threw that one back, because those are very rare,...if you know what I mean?(lol), just kidding.

[big nor]

My experience is that the males are long and skinny!!!!

[ChiefCatchemall]

As soon as you catch one...rub its belly, if the fins on its back stand up....it's a male.........lol.

Hahaha

[FishingNy03]

no way to tell, just by the eggs

[Bailbuster]

Since the females are typically the big ones you should put all of the big perch you catch back down the hole just to be safe. When I catch them I will gladly seperate them out for you.

Big females fry just like males!!!

[Mainehazmt]

throw em all on the ice

[Piggyn]

throw em all on the ice

People outside of New England know that they're delicious!   

[taxi1]

I just learned something new pointed out in a publication on another website.

Did you know the female yellow perch has three openings and the male only has two?

I was always under the impression they both had two openings like many other species of fish -- a urogenital combination opening and an anus. Apparently the females have both a urinary opening and a genital opening plus the anus while the male only has one urogenital opening combination and an anus.

See top column on the right:



Next time you catch a perch take a look and let me know what you see! You may need to bring a magnifying glass though.

[slipperybob]

The thing about female fish is that one female usually requires a few males...harvesting just the males could hurt the fish population much more than one can realize.  The few big males genes...

[taxi1]

The thing about female fish is that one female usually requires a few males...harvesting just the males could hurt the fish population much more than one can realize.  The few big males genes...

I accidentally dropped a male perch in my all female perch pond a couple of years ago. I don't know if he wore himself out but I ended up with lots of offspring. 

[Jigmup]

I think ya need to ask the eagles and fox's on the lakes they are the only one that would know because they eat them  but in my experience they don't care  they just like all trash fish!

post is old but you have got to be kidding right? Trash fish?

[DoubleG]

This time of year most females have a pronounced gut on them

Sounds like the bars here in Jersey!    Sorry had to do it.

[troutaddict33]

People outside of New England know that they're delicious!   

I know, must be all that tea got soaked into their brains. Fans that go crazy over a terrible baseball team, throwing one of the best tasting fish out just to die, and the poor poor treatment of those helpless little pickerel LOL!

If you want a healthier perch population, kill and eat what you catch. Where there's perch, there usually a lot. And the more that die, the less competition for food. not in all cases, but that's how it is in a lot of big lakes

[Mainehazmt]

oh they get ate   just not by humans!   per biologist request....

[roughice]

Given good water conditions perch can and will quickly multiply to the point of being the largest numbers in the system.  I've seen where even the little ones (6"ers) have roe. They are prolific reproducers, kinda like underwater rabbits  Our lake has no limit on perch, it is somewhat self imposed by the number you need for a meal or how many you want to clean. I've brought 30 home and not even had one male in the pail.