5/10/2006
Green Bay yellow perch bag limit increases May 20

GREEN BAY – Good news for anglers on Green Bay: starting May 20, bag limits for yellow perch increase from 10 to 15 fish per day.

The increase follows five years of restrictive bag limits to help protect dwindling stocks of yellow perch, a species whose population in Green Bay had declined sharply around the turn of the century but now seems to be rebounding.

“Based on our population surveys and what anglers and commercial fishers are catching, we’re cautiously optimistic that the yellow perch population in Green Bay has been increasing and can support modestly higher bag limits at this time,” says Matt Mangan, a Department of Natural Resources fisheries biologist in Peshtigo.

“People will have an opportunity to take home five more fish. With the increased abundance and catch rates, there are good opportunities to catch those five extra fish.”

The commercial harvest is also increasing, climbing to 60,000 pounds annually from 20,000 pounds. As with the sport bag increase, however, the commercial harvest increase is incremental and will not bring harvest levels back to the pre-2001 level of 200,000 pounds.

“We feel comfortable increasing sport and commercial harvests some, but not too quickly,” Mangan says. “We want to make sure -- and anglers wanted us to be sure -- that the large number of fish hatched in recent years have survived at high rates and are capable of supporting larger harvests.”

Sport bag and harvest limits were dropped in 200l after a 90 percent decrease in yellow perch between 1988 and 2000 resulting from poor natural reproduction during those years (with the exception of 1998), according to Bill Horns, DNR Great Lakes fisheries specialist.

To help the yellow perch population recover, the biologists wanted to offer more protection to fish born in 1998, the only year-class in which sizable numbers of young fish were surviving long enough to reproduce and enter the fishery, Horns says.

That strategy is apparently working. The estimated yellow perch population in Green Bay has been increasing, driven by strong year-classes produced in 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2005, Mangan says.

The fortunes of the 2003 year-class are particularly important. Fall 2003 trawling surveys revealed it to be the largest sampled in more than two decades of sampling, and the year-class has survived at high rates and is now being caught by anglers. In fact, 65 percent of the yellow perch sport anglers caught in 2005 were from the 2003 year-class, he says.

Anglers in 2005 caught and kept fish at a higher rate, and the commercial harvest rate has also been increasing, both signs that there is an increased abundance of yellow perch in Green Bay, Mangan says.

“The signs are all positive at this point,” Mangan said. “We want to make sure these positive trends hold and continue to show that the young fish have survived and are capable of supporting larger harvests.”

FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT: Bill Horns (608) 266-8782 or Matt Mangan (715) 582-5052

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