Pond - perch

I'm not a big fisherman, but my BIL & nephews are, so they've been hitting my pond off and on the last year or so. Have had the property 5 yrs and don't know who stocked what in the past. Only been catching largemouth bass and a couple of bluegills. Have seen a koi, catfish and have been looking into stocking it with perch as I love the taste.

Anyway, this past weekend my nephew caught a perch (see attached). I was pretty happy as I figure there's more than one in there and it will save me the trouble of stocking it. It was pretty good size.

Seems like the pond is overstocked with bass, though. But since we fish from shore, I'm not sure what the perch population is like in the deeper areas. Need to get a boat and do some fishing in the middle, I guess.

You'll find that the Bass eat the other fish where the other fish eat other things beside each other. When we had a pond years ago, we had a flood and the river put Nile Perch into our pond. They are very hard to catch with a hook because of their small mouth. We found that feeding them dog food would fatten them up nicely and they were pretty good eating. So were the catfish. I don't think Perch can live in Florida's waters, as I've never seen one here.

When we stocked our pond, we called the DNR and they gave us the minnows. Blue Gill and Sunfish first, then in 6 months the Bass minnows. This gives the little guys a chance to get bigger and smarter before the Bass show up.