rb608 wrote:
"Wolfgang" wrote in message
RalphH wrote:
All the Yellow Perch have moved to British Columbia - we hate them

Serve 'em up breaded, deep fried and free at all the local watering
holes on Friday nights. It worked here.

There's your regional differences for you. The demise of the yellow perch
around here is sorely lamented. Time was, a fella could take a bucket o'
minnows out on the tidal Gunpowder River in the springtime & catch his fill
before lunch. Word was they were good eatin', though I was never a big
panfish fan. Nowadays, though, there are size limits, catch limits, closed
seasons. Most here see the demise of the abundance of yellow perch as
symptomatic.

When I was a small boy I would often walk the mile or so down to the
harbor in Kenosha with my brothers and my sister, each of us armed with
a long two section cane pole early on a summer's morning. We would
stop at a bait shop at the corner of 6th Avenue and 50th street and get
a couple dozen minnows for a dime or a quarter, and then head out onto
the pier and take up stations among the hundred or more other folks
lining both sides, out beyond where the ships were moored......out
where the concrete was broken and presented inescapable and
unforgetable views of a watery hell just waiting to swallow a small
boy......um.....but I digress.

We would catch perch in the ttwelve to fifteen inch size range until we
ran out of bait.....half an hour or so.....and then cut up one of the
smaller perch into hook size bits and fish some more.

The morning would invariably end with a long death-march homeward, one
or more small children crying.....tired and cranky from carrying all
those heavy fish.

Those days are gone forever.....I'm much taller now.....and I can swim.


Alas, the perch are gone too. Daily catch limits in those days were
obscene.....a hundred?.....two hundred?.....I don't remember for sure.
Commercial fishing boats hauled them in by the ton. They were so
common that they were literally given away for free at the local bars
to hungry factory workers as they left work in the afternoon......as
long as they kept buying nickel beers. They drank a lot of beer.

For generations (including the first half of mine) perch was THE staple
at the Friday night fish fry offered by virtually every restaurant (and
Catholic Church basement) in the region. You can still get perch
today.....but it's Canadian.....and it'll cost you about twice as much
as the cod (which is also disappearing) or haddock (which is nowhere
near as plentiful as it once was) or tilapia or.....

You can also get whitefish......but it's Canadian....or lake
trout....but it's.....well, you know.

But, as cheerful and zealous as the profligate rape of the resource
was, I think the damage done by both "sport" and commercial fishing
pales by comparison with what was done to the lake itself. People
don't fish all that much for perch anymore.....but they haven't come
back.

Personally, I would never turn up my nose at a properly fried perch,
but I like bluegill and their close cousins much better. And there's
billions of them left around here.....and they're easy.....and they are
SO much fun on a fly rod!

Wolfgang