Perch is one of the most common fish in our country. Perches can be found everywhere: in rivers, lakes, ponds and reservoirs. Perches can be caught in winter, summer, spring... They are available fishing with spinning, floating, on live fry, oats, etc. Let's try to get to know this beautiful fish more closely.

What does a perch look like?

Due to its impressive appearance and bright striped color, the perch is difficult to confuse with other types of fish. Perch has a laterally compressed body covered with dense small scales. The body height of a perch is a third of its length, which makes the perch look like a massive fish.

The back of the perch is dark, greenish in color. The sides of the perch are greenish-yellow with dark transverse stripes. The number of dark stripes can be from 5 to 9 units. The color of the transverse stripes of young perch is lighter, the color of older ones is darker. The belly of the perch is bright, with a white-yellowish hue. Large perch have a well-defined hump on the back.

A perch has two dorsal fins that are close to each other. The first dorsal fin is higher and longer than the second, is gray-green in color, and has a black spot on it, which is a distinctive feature of the species. The first dorsal fin consists of 12-16 bony processes, all of which are hard and sharp. The second dorsal fin is yellow-green in color and consists of 12-17 outgrowths.

Perch pectoral fins are yellow, sometimes even red. Anal fins orange or red-yellow, consisting of 8-10 outgrowths. The caudal fin is dark at the base and red on the sides and back.

The color of the perch depends greatly on its habitat, water clarity, and the color of the bottom. Bass that live in reservoirs with clear water and sandy bottoms have a lighter body color than those that live in dark peaty lakes with silty bottoms.

The head of the bass is medium in size, with bristly teeth in the mouth, which are in several rows on the palate and on the jaws. Bristle teeth do not allow the perch prey to escape from the mouth. A bass has no fangs. There are sharp spines on the covers of the gills of a perch that protect it from predators, those who have caught a perch at least once know how sharp they are and what deep cuts they leave on their hands. The eyes of the bass are large, the iris is yellow.

Outwardly, male perch are practically no different from females, except before the spawning period, when the female's abdomen is filled with eggs.

How many perches live and what they grow up to be

The maximum size of bass varies greatly from body to body. There have been cases where the maximum size of perch living even in adjacent ponds is very different.

The life span and size of bass depends on the specific reservoir. In large bodies of water, the chances of catching large, trophy bass are much higher.

The average size of an adult perch is 15-20 cm. As a rule, the length of the perch does not exceed 50 cm, and the weight - 2 kg.

The maximum recorded lifespan of a perch is 23 years. A perch of this age was caught in Lake Khubsugul in Mongolia, measuring 44.7 cm in length and weighing more than 2 kg.

The way of life of a bass

Perches live in rivers, lakes, ponds and reservoirs, but are also found in alpine lakes, up to 1000 meters above sea level.

Perches can live in salt water and are found along the coasts of the Baltic and Caspian seas.

Perch is a widespread fish and is found in most waters. In some waters, bass may be the only fish inhabiting it.

In reservoirs, perch stay near the coastal zone of the reservoir covered with aquatic vegetation, as well as sections of reservoirs with artificial and natural shelters.

Perches spend most of their lives at the bottom. In large reservoirs at great depths, flocks of small perch are located on the slopes of the depths, that is, in places where the depth increases sharply. Flocks of bass go to the seeds to hunt fry, which are abundant in such places.

Bass do not like cold water and fast currents, you will not find it in cold rivers. In most water bodies, bass are kept in places where the water temperature is between 13 and 19 degrees.

A bass boil occurs when a school of bass surrounds a fry, forcing the fry to rise to the very surface or even jump out of the water in an attempt to escape greedy predators. Water in such places, as they say, boils.

Perches like to be near broken bridges, near large rocks. Thanks to their greenish color, they can camouflage themselves well among aquatic vegetation and attack small fish. Large perches live in deeper places, in holes.

Small perches hunt in groups, large perches hunt alone. Perches actively chase prey, jump to the surface of the water, sometimes even to the shore. Perches spread their dorsal fin during hunting. Large bass hunt from ambushes like pike.

Perches follow a twilight lifestyle, hunt during daylight hours, and the peak of activity is at the border between day and night, that is, in the morning and evening twilight. At night, the activity of perch decreases significantly.

In autumn, perch gather in large schools and stay in deeper and more open places. In the cold season, the perch stay close to the bottom. The bigger the perch, the deeper it stays. In winter, as in summer, perch are active during the day, activity increases after dark and is not active at night.

How perch reproduce

Perch spawning, as a rule, occurs immediately after pike spawning. Big bass start spawning later than small ones.

Males are ready to spawn at the age of 2-3 years, females a little later, at the age of 4-5 years. There are no changes in appearance during spawning. Spawning usually lasts 4-5 days. The fecundity of a female bass is between 12,000 and 300,000 eggs, depending on her size. Several males accompany the female during spawning.

During spawning, the female lays mesh ribbons of gelatinous material on last year's vegetation, flooded bushes or even just on the bottom, and the males fertilize them. The diameter of perch eggs is about 4 mm, the length of the strip for small perch can be from 12 cm, for large ones up to 1 meter.

About two weeks after spawning, it hatches into bass larvae about 6 mm long. Hatched bass larvae feed on crustacean larvae and other small aquatic organisms. Soon, the bass larvae move to the deeper zone of the reservoir, where they feed on zooplankton and remain in the upper water layers. After three to four weeks, the grown bass larvae return to the coastal zone.

When the body length is 15-20 mm, the perch larva becomes a fry, and when the body length is 20-25 mm, dark stripes of perch are observed on the fry.

What do perch eat?

In the first year of life, perch feed on zooplankton and other small aquatic organisms. As soon as the perch reaches a length of 4 cm, which is usually in the second year of life, and sometimes in the first, it begins to feed on fry.

Fish becomes the main food of a perch only after reaching a length of 15 cm, but even large perch continue to eat not only fish, but also zooplankton and other animal food.

As the perch ages, it begins to hunt larger and faster objects. 3-year-old perch eat fish 2-4 cm in size, 6-year-old - 2-8 cm in size.

Perches eat not only fish, but also other animal food. A bass's diet depends on the reservoir it lives in and can also vary depending on the time of year and food availability. Perches easily switch from one food to another.

Perches prefer to feed on narrow-bodied fish species, e.g. roach In addition to fish, perch feed on insect larvae, frogs, and crayfish.

Perches are prone to cannibalism, larger perches eating their smaller relatives. This usually happens either in late autumn, when bass fry move to deeper areas, or in bodies of water where only bass live. Cannibalism is a protective mechanism that limits the uncontrolled reproduction of bass.

In spring, when the snow melts, bass feed on worms and invertebrates that enter the water along with the melting ice. In the summer, perch eat a variety of animal food, a large part of which is fry. Perches are especially active in autumn feeding, which is related to preparation for winter. It is in autumn that the size and weight of perch increases the most.

The bass is so greedy that it fills its stomach so much that the tails of the caught fish that do not fit in the stomach can come out of the mouth. For ten months of the year, perch gobble up anything that moves and resembles food.

Perch in cooking

Bass meat has a good taste. Compared to other fish, sea bass have few bones. Perch meat is considered a dietary product, 100 grams contains only 82 kcal. Perch meat retains its taste even after freezing for 3-4 months.

A wonderful fish stew is made from the perches, canned fish and fillets are prepared, the perches are fried, dried, fried, smoked.

Various sea bass dishes are very popular in Scandinavian and Eastern European countries. In Finland, perch is a national dish turkey - bass pie with bacon. In Italy, perch in white wine is considered a Christmas dish.

Smoking hot is one of the best ways to prepare sea bass. For smoking bass, it is best to use alder, ash, apple or cherry chips.

There is a lot of preparation recipes. Try different recipes for sea bass, experiment and you won't be disappointed.