Idaho Lake Could Produce State Record Perch this Winter

By Roger Phillips, Idaho Fish and Game public information specialist

Lake Cascade produced three perch in 2014 that topped a state record that had stood for 38 years, and also a world's record for largest perch ever caught on a tip-up rig.

Tia Wiese of Eagle currently owns both Idaho's state record and a world's-record with a 15.5-inch, 2-pound, 11.68-ounce whopper she caught March 1, 2014. Several other anglers, including her father, Gary Wiese, landed similar-sized perch.

But this isn't a history lesson. Bigger perch are likely swimming in Lake Cascade right now based on fall surveys done by Idaho Fish and Game biologists, and ice fishing has gotten an early start thanks to a late-November cold spell.

In October, Fish and Game crews netted 15 areas of the lake and alternated between nets set on bottom and near the surface to monitor Cascade's fish population.

"It gives us a pretty good idea what's swimming around," said Paul Janssen, Fish and Game's regional fisheries biologist based out of McCall.

The results? About 27 percent of the perch caught were over 12 inches, and 8 percent were over 14 inches. The largest perch they netted taped a shade under 16 inches, which is comparable to the state record. And they're getting bigger.

Perch are typically heaviest in late winter when females are fattened up and laden with eggs before spawning.

The quantity of large perch surprised even Janssen, who's spent 25 years in the McCall area and helped restore Lake Cascade's perch population.

Janssen said anglers probably aren't putting a dent in the lake's perch population. Fish and Game crews tagged 500 fish longer than 10 inches during March and April and only received only 15 back from anglers since then. Under normal catch rates, they get about 12 percent back, or 60 tags.

That can mean a couple things. Either anglers are catching a small fraction of the perch population, or those big fish are elusive, or both.

It will be fun to watch how things play out this winter because ice fishing is among the most popular ways to catch perch. When the ice thickens, the whole lake is available to anyone willing to chase those elusive big fish, as well as lake's trophy rainbow trout. The largest perch are typically caught in February and March, and ice fishing ended early last winter when the ice broke up during prime fishing time.

Lake Cascade has been a bright spot in Fish and Game's fisheries management since it was overhauled in the early 2000s to restore perch populations after they crashed in the 1990s. The department removed literally tons of predators, mostly northern pikeminnows, and transplanted about 850,000 adult perch. Those initial transplants produced literally billions of young perch and rejuvenated the lake with not only large perch, but a food base for other species.

"Everything in there feeds on those young-of-the-year perch," Janssen said.

The big unanswered question is how long Cascade will continue to produce trophy perch. Many Idaho lakes and reservoirs have large and healthy perch populations, but they don't produce the size or numbers of Cascade's magnum fish.

Janssen said he expected those big perch to be a short-lived phenomenon. As the lake repopulated in the early 2000s, the earlier generations of perch had nearly unlimited food supply and grew quickly.

"They basically had an empty lake and few predators," Janssen said.

Eventually, the perch population will reach the lake's carrying capacity and growth rates will slow. Janssen is starting to see signs of that, but the lake is still producing huge perch, which means there appears to be enough food and habitat available.

"We expected those really big fish to go away, but they don't seem to be," Janssen said. "They're living long, happy lives."