Lake Michigan perch fishery rebounds

[GLF]

Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin virtually shut down their commercial perch operations in the late ‘90s, after Lake Michigan’s perch population plummeted. But now, a decade later, that perch fishery is recovering dramatically. There are more and bigger perch now spreading throughout Lake Michigan.

"The reason we are seeing this is that the commercial guys are not out there lopping off most of the bigger perch," said Paul Allen, a research biologist at Ball State University and the chairman of the Lake Michigan Yellow Perch Task Group. "There was excessive harvest going on back then and the fish couldn't get past that barrier." The barrier, Allen explained at the Midwest Fish and Wildlife Conference in Grand Rapids, was 40 million feet of gillnet set by commercial fisherman in Indiana waters.

What's coming, Clapp says, should be even better. "The 2005 year class is the best in the last 10 years," said Dave Clapp, the head of the Michigan DNR's Great Lakes Fisheries Research Station in Charlevoix. Clapp also attended the fish and wildlife conference.