selective harvest

[MontanaIcer]

I was wondering how many people try to release the female perch they catch?

I just started fishing for perch this year, and it seems like most of the perch I catch are females. Should all these be released? If every time you go out and keep 10-20 perch with most being females, are you going to hurt the population?


Thanks

[pikemaster789]

dont over kill it, take what you will eat. but there are plenty of perch in most waters to go around

[Swift]

Friend and I have been fishing a 50 acre lake, max. 50' deep, for over 30 years that has some BIG Perch in it. We've limit ourselves to 30 each per year(summer and winter total) <11" and no fat females. The most amazing thing is that no one else seems to know they're there, what few they catch are the bait stealing dinks in with the 'gills around the weeds, cuts and cove. Believe they think we're chasing Crappies, we will let them lay on the ice while fishing for the curious to see, not the Perch. Made a mistake on a similar lake a few years ago of letting the knowledge out on the 'net, lake was desimated at ice out and hasn't been the same since. F'n, no class pigs that simply lurk and exploit, never again.

[perch-man]

In Manitoba we have a 25 perch limit on all lakes except Lake Winnipeg, Lake Manitoba,and Lake Winnipegosis no limit.

[jimski2]

Perch are very prolific, they must have some harvested or they stunt down. Each lake has its different amount of fishing pressure. Your limit should be what you can clean comfortably if they are plenty. Lake Erie has tons of perch caught in nets commercially in Ontario for generations and we haven't run out of them yet. Now we have the nicest largest perch here than anywhere else due to a lot of small ones being taken out. Lake Simcoe, which put a limit on several years ago, is 80% loaded with throwbacks, not a good situation. They will end up with a boom and bust fishery as those little guys will eat all the perch, walleye and whitefish fry and fingerlings to survive.