Yellow Perch Eggs

[Skeets]

I recently cleaned a limit of medium sized Yellow Perch.
Every single one of them was full of eggs.
When do they spawn?
How come there didn't seem to be any males?

Just curious, perch in the winter always seem to be full of eggs.

[Guest]

Most female fish regardless of species carry eggs all winter for the spring spawn.

[This message has been edited by whitetip (edited 01-06-2004).]

[Lunker]

Perch spawn very early, as do pike(right around ice out). Probably all females cause they are eating like crazy before the spawn, get fat and sassy, and they are the bigger fish of the sexes so most keepers are gonna be female. Many people think the eggs are tasty fried up, I usually give them to the cat.

[Bogsucker]

Did you keep the eggs? I've heard they are quite tasty!

[Skeets]

No, I did not keep the eggs.
Fried, boy I don't know. They look like guts!

Perch are sure good eating, if you can get some big ones!

[WaveWacker]

Call me a country hick, but I have kept and eaten the eggs and find them to be good. Don't get me wrong. I don't go out of my way to make sure I catch fish that have eggs in them.

[FI Guide]

Perch are a strange spawing fish. All year long i always catch perch with eggs in them i dont know what the deal is. Now most of the perch i catch go right back down the hole to make little perch. The same thing goes on with the crappies. I caught my limit and cleaned them all and all of the fish had eggs in them. I guess they hold their eggs for a while