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Yellow perch spawning and egg deposition survey in Lake Michigan waters near Green Can Reef, Milwaukee - 2001

The objective of the assessment is to quantify the relative abundance of mature female perch in previously identified spawning areas.  We conducted three samplings in 2001 on 5/30/01, 5/31/01 and 6/701.  We used 1,800 ft of gillnet each lift with 2.75 and 3 inch stretch mesh.  The bottom temperature was 51 ⁰F.  Data on sex, condition and total length were recorded.  A total of 1,442 yellow perch were captured in three lifts of which 994 were males and 448 were females (31%).  Although the fast growing 1998 year-class yellow perch started appearing as early as 1999 spawning assessment, they comprised a significant portion of mature females in 2001 which is a great improvement of the female numbers in recent years (4% in 1999 and 15.5% in 2000).  We did not collect age samples during the assessment; however the data on average size at capture (see Table below) corresponds to 3 year-old perch.  Because of the poor recruitment in the early 1990s the yellow perch population had been depressed, with extremely low proportion of female perch.