New Regulations Yield More Yellow Perch for the Taking

The good old days are gone but sometimes you get glimpses. So it was last week from one end of Maryland to the other as yellow perch, first fish of spring, popped up in plenty from the top of Chesapeake Bay down to the Virginia line.

"The perch haven't been in here like this for 40 years," said Mike Benjamin, who cuts hair, runs fishing charters and works at Herb's Tackle Shop for a living in North East, which is nearly in Delaware. Likewise, 100 miles away at Allen's Fresh off the Wicomico, where you can almost see Virginia, little yellow neds were thick last weekend.

Dennis Fleming, who has fished Allen's Fresh for years, attributes the broad abundance to new state rules that sharply limit commercial exploitation of yellow perch, which mass every year at this time to run up narrow creeks and spawn. Benjamin agrees.

For decades, commercial netters plundered spawning perch, mostly to sell to Midwestern markets where they are considered a delicacy. Ten years ago the Coastal Conservation Association's Maryland Chapter decided to make an issue of the skewed apportionment, claiming up to 90 percent of the little fish were taken by a handful of netters, leaving almost none for sportfishermen.

They dubbed yellow perch "the people's fish" because of their historical popularity with families and kids, who used to line the banks of tidal streams in spring to catch some for a fish fry. CCA lobbied the legislature and the Department of Natural Resources for a fairer share and in the last few years made significant gains.

This year Maryland set strict limits on how many perch commercial netters could take and on where they could set nets, and tightened enforcement. The quota was set at about a quarter of the 190,000 pounds taken 10 years ago. Netters had that modest limit in hand by March 8 and their season was shut, leaving the water to everyone else.

At Allen's Fresh, where I've gone for the last few years to celebrate my birthday March 7, the banks were lined with kids cavorting and men sitting on buckets, and the stream was dotted with more serious anglers in chest-waders casting minnows or tube lures across the sleepy current.

Fleming had four small boats and nine anglers lined up to fish deeper holes downriver, where perch mass before making the run upstream to deposit their eggs and milt along the shore. He made a little speech about keeping mostly males rather than the plump, roe-laden females, to lessen any effect we'd have on reproduction. Then we were off on a warm, sun-dappled morning to test our luck.

On one boat by special invitation was Tom O'Connell, Maryland's fisheries director, who proved as adept as anyone at catching perch and turned out to be a pretty good hand with a filet knife when we motored upstream, stringers full, for an outdoor fish fry three hours later.

Allen's Fresh was closed entirely to commercial netters this year and has been the beneficiary of tight regulations for several years, in keeping with its singular popularity as a recreational destination. The fishing was excellent last weekend, as it has been each March 7 for the last three years (it's one date I have little problem remembering). The perch fry in the woods gets better every year. This year it came complete with hush puppies, cole slaw, baked beans, beer and a birthday cake. Wow!

A limit of 10 perch was not hard to get at Allen's Fresh, but if the fishing was good there it was even better at North East on Wednesday, with big, fat perch up to 13 inches long massed around the harbor, where access for shore anglers is easy from the town park and the fishing is even easier from a boat.

We'd fished with live minnows at Allen's Fresh but Benjamin, whose father opened Herb's Tackle Shop in 1961, said we wouldn't need any for the North East River, which runs behind his shop. "We sell minnows," he said with a laugh. "We don't use them."