I don’t know why, but I’ve always been fascinated by yellow perch. Maybe it’s because they are beautiful or perhaps it’s because they are among the first fish to bite each spring or maybe it has to do that there is no finer eating fish that swims – I’m just a big fan.
Yellow perch, sometimes called ring perch, are cousins of walleye – considered the finest eating of all freshwater fish. They are also a preferred food source for walleye and that’s probably the reason they are now well-established in Lake Orange. Someone that liked to fish for walleye brought them to the lake. When the Game Department found out that perch were in their lake illegally (the Department owns and manages Lake Orange) they made every attempt to get rid of them because they compete with crappie and crappie were a prized fish in the lake. When the Department biologists electro-shocked, they tossed the perch up on the bank. I was with them once on such an expedition and as they were going to throw a shocked perch on the shore, I asked if I could have it (a fat 10-incher) and they said, “Sure, take all you want.”
Ultimately, they were unsuccessful in eradicating the yellow perch. They are now well established, and Lake Orange is giving up some nice fish, like the citation above caught last week.
Yellow perch are easy to catch – if you can find them.
They like sandy bottoms to spawn, and their preferred depths are 8 to 12 feet. They eat both worms and minnows and hang in schools. If you catch one, stay there. There’s more.
There are several outstanding places to catch yellow perch in Virginia. The best of the best is Lake Moomaw where more citations are caught than in any other piece of water. Other great spots are the Chickahominy River, Lake Anna, Western Branch, Prince, Waller Mill, Ragged Mountain Reservoir, Little Creek, Holliday, and Claytor lakes, plus the Potomac, Rappahannock, Nottoway, and New rivers.
They are pretty fish, they’re fun to catch and they are biting right now at Lake Orange.
