Northwest Fishing Reports

Just an FYI, I had heard rumblings two years ago that WDFW had shocked up a Yellow Perch in Curlew Lake. My family took our first trip to our cabin on Julian Bay this year and the bay is littered with perch now. We easily caught over 50 fish and saw a lot more. I do not know how this will affect the fishing there, but they are in the lake and here to stay. Hopefully the bass and trout can compete and the perch will not affect them much. I imagine this is just a new rough fish for the tigers to help control. I did watch a 3lb largemouth inhale a perch on the bass' bed. We also found them down off Pine Point around the docks. Lots of fish 4-8" long and plenty of little perch fry. Hopefully the numbers stay down and they grow big enough to be a decent fishery and not just over populate and stunt. If you're up there catch a few and fry em up!

I didn't see any last year but I do remember this article in the Spokanesman.
http://m.spokesman.com/stories/2012/jun ... or-curlew/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

from what i know they first showed up in a survey around 6 years ago, and have been there ever since. Someone probably thought it would be a good idea cause it was his favorite fish, so they released a bucket full. I, too, hope that it is not detrimental to the fishery up there. It should not hurt the state record Tiger Muskie population up there, i don't know what it will do to the other fish there. I know they eat a lot of bugs and such.

That's unfortunate, time to dial up my Rapala Super Shad Rap, perch pattern naturally. Thanks for the heads up.

Bass will just get fatter, the Tigers grow faster, but it may hurt the trout eventually.

Usually when a new species, like perch, takes off, they overpopulate, then the population crashes, then it stabilizes. The problem is that there is only so much "bio-mass" a lake can take. For every perch pound there is in the lake, there will be a pound of some other fish that will no longer be in there. The real question is what species will take the hit.

Of course, if there is a surplus food source, then maybe, sometimes, on occasion, nothing bad will happen.