Underwater Life - Perch - Extreme Sports

Happy May Day! Do you know what May Day is? So in some parts of the US, small flower arangements are made and left at someone’s doorstep, the door bell is rang and then you run away. If the receiver catches you then a kiss is exchanged. See, here you came to learn about Perch and walked away with some knowledge about May Day. I’m so glad I could enlighten you.

Remember you’re supposed to learn something new every day and I wanted to make sure if you knew all this information about Perch, that you could at least walk away with something from this blog post. At the end of this month is the annual Memorial Day dive weekend down at Beaver Lake and I’m trying to help gear your knowledge of the underwater life you could see down at the lake so without further ado, I give you information about Perch!

Perch – either of two species of fish, the common and the yellow perch often referred to as just perch. This fish is also widely confused with other varieties of fish.

The Perch is a freshwater shoal fish found throughout the British Isles and much of Europe, South Africa, Australasia and Asia. There is a yellow perch that is closely related which is an American and southern Canadian species.

Source

Appearance:

They have two dorsal fins, the first spiny and the second soft-rayed.
When a perch is large it is a bold, attractive, rather chunky fish.
The body is oval and as the fish begins to grow it develops a humped back.
The perch has rough scales that are rough to the touch, and the gill plate culminates in sharp bony spike.
The Yellow Perch yellow green in color with dark, vertical bars on the sides and reddish or orange coloring in the lower fins.
They grow to about 15 inches (40 cm) and 2.2lb (1kg).
Their striped bodies make it easy for them to hide in the aquatic vegetation.

Perches are carnivores. They like to eat:

worms,
small fish,
nymphs
and larvae,
as well as many of their own small perch.

They are relatively active fish and feed all day long, especially in the morning and evening. They typically don’t feed much at night.

Yellow perch are an extremely adaptable fish that can thrive in a great variety of habitats; they inhabit quiet ponds, lakes, streams and rivers

They spawn in spring when the water temp is between 44 and 55˚F, the female at the time laying strings of eggs in the shallows among water plants, branches and the like. They typically spawn between 4,000 and 40,000 eggs depending on their size. The eggs hatch in 8-10 days.

Perch are not good parents and not only do they not care for their young, they will readily eat them if possible.

When threatened the perch raises these fins as a defense against being eaten. The spines on the fins are extremely sharp and can inflict a painful wound.

Perch grow slowly but can live for nine – 10 years.

The world record yellow perch (18 in., 4 lb. 3 oz.) was caught in 1865 from New Jersey, and is the longest standing record for freshwater fish in North America.

And for fun facts because why not:

The biological side: