Perca Fluviatilis (The Perch)

Perca Fluviatilis (The Perch)
A difficult fish to mistake for any other coarse fish, this boldly striped predator with its spikes first dorsal fin raised in hunting mode tells all about its nature. The perch has a deep, hump-backed body when adult, with between six and nine dark, vertical bars along golden olive flanks. The pelvic and lower half of the tail fin are coloured in bright orange or scarlet red. The pectoral is set high up against the gill cover and is virtually colourless. The fish has a double dorsal fin. The first is strongly spined with a dark blotch at the base of the last two spines, the second has soft rays. Its belly is white.

Colouring
Colouring varies according to location, with clear weedy waters being best for bringing out the striking colours of the perch. These same colours can be rather drab in heavily coloured waters. The scales are rough to the tough and the mouth is bony, very large and expandable. Inside there is a tongue with bristles and the throat contains bristle-gripping pads.

Habitat
Perch are lovers of both still and running water, but prefer to live close to, beneath or among structures like wooden pilings and boat-houses, sunken tress, deep holes and gullies, and road and railway bridges which span the river systems. They are happiest when surrounded by the vertical stems of marginal plants, such as tall reeds and bulrushes, where their vertical stripes blend in marvelously, offering protection from other predators, yet also providing camouflage which enables them to pounce upon small shoal fish that pass by.

This is an aggressive, pugnacious hunter. When young, they hunt in shoals always appearing to be hungry, harrying shoals of even smaller fish, biting at their tails until they are too tired to flee further or are cornered, at which point the slaughter begins. The perch hold the baitfish penned up whilst two or three fish smash through the terrified shoal to feed. In a couple of minutes it’s all over, the perch retire, spiky dorsal fins down to return to the cover of near-side reeds, rushes or the shade of overhanging vegetation.

Breeding
Perch spawn early, usually during April and spring sees the shoals moving towards the spawning areas. This is the only time that fish of all sizes congregate together in relative harmony when procreation is in the forefront of their minds. Little tiny male perch can be seen chasing fat, gravid females many times their size, avid to fertilise the eggs expelled in long, lacy strands in the weed stems and gravel’s of the spawning grounds. The strings of sticky white eggs are also laid through reed stems, over sunken branches and tree-roots in the shallow margins.

A prime female can lay up to 300,000 eggs and the goggle-eyed fry hatch in 8-9 days, if not eaten by eels, birds and their own kind, to start the cycle of all over again.

Lifestyle
Infant perch start by eating animal plankton, shrimps and aquatic insect larvae, but they quickly move on to a diet comprising of mostly other fish at about 100gm in weight. Perch will eat small fish of all species, including their own kind. Self-cropping is, in fact, responsible for fisheries containing only two or three year classes of perch – very small and very large specimens.

From now on perch can put on weight quite rapidly, providing that plenty of food is available. If food is not readily available, the perch will remain small, weighing only 250 to 300gm at seven years of age. On the other hand, with good living on plenty of food the same seven-year-old fish could easily weight 3 to 4lb.

The better-sized fish mostly come from the rivers or lakes where there are high numbers of roach or rudd. They tend to be found in places where good cover is close at hand from where they can ambush their prey. In rivers it is the quieter stretches where they are to be found. In summer it is the weedy shallows in which they hunt and take up residence. In autumn the shoals join together starting to move out to deeper water feeding voraciously to gain fat to sustain them through winter.

Fishing For Perch
The gold of autumn is the time of year when most people who know perch start to seriously target them. Finding the shoals is the first job and sometimes a difficult one. Spinning with a ‘Mepps’ or micro bait (35mm) is one way of covering a lot of water. In rivers especially, a paternoster is a great way to search the areas under the willows, in the deeper holes and along the weed-fringed drop-offs. When bait fishing nothing succeeds like a lively worm on a size 10 to 6 hook. Perch have bucket-sized mouths and small perch have eyes much bigger than their bellies; a baby perch only 75mm long will try to engulf a worm twice its size. Drop the paternostered bait into the likely spots for no more than a coupe of minutes then move it along a bit, or in and out, until there is a bite or the area is covered. Then move to the next spot and try again. The bite will often come directly after the bait has been tweaked to a new position. The first indication will be a couple of quick tugs; at this point do not strike. Drop the rod tip 15 to 30cm to give a little slack line and when a distinct drawing pull is felt lift firmly into the fish. 

As said before perch are shoal fish and usually the shoals consist of fish of a similar size. Invariably the first fish caught from a given shoal will be one of the largest so if it’s small move on. Up to about 500gm the shoals can be quite large, 40-50 fish during the autumn period if you are lucky. At 2lb plus the shoal may be down to 3 or 4 fish, the others eaten by their faster growing brother or sisters or having died. At 4lb they are usually solitary and like most large fish, very wise in their ways of avoiding capture.

If you describe yourself as a specimen hunter please bear in mind that a 2lb fish from a pond stocked with stunted fish is a veritable monster and should be treated with due veneration; whereas the same fish from a prime water is barely worth a mention, though still a nice fish.

Winter sees a decline in activity and the perch retire to the deepest water available to them, and on some gravel pits this can be into holes of 7 to 10 metres deep. Here they while away until in the gloom and the static temperatures until spring starts to warm the water once again. Perch can still be caught at this time of year but it is a slow and often boring way to pass time. A static ledger with a bunch of worms, a dead or livebait on a running rig is probably the best approach. Allow a long tail between the weight and the hook too, as the slightest hint of drag will have it ejected very smartly. The long tail allows the perch to get the bait well into its mouth before realisation that something is amiss.

Perch Anatomy
If you would like more details of the anatomy of a perch then click here!

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