The North Dakota Game and Fish Department is planning to stock adult yellow perch into Devils Lake next spring as part of a “trap-and-transport” effort to boost populations of the tasty panfish, which are a popular draw for anglers on the big lake, especially in the winter.

According to Greg Power, fisheries chief for Game and Fish in Bismarck, moving egg-laden adult perch from lakes with too many stunted fish has worked well in creating new perch fisheries in small prairie lakes, but has rarely been tried on a scale as large as Devils Lake.

The window of opportunity isn’t open very long; perch are early spawners.

“The critical thing is to get the nets in (the water) right at ice out, and move them to the new lakes before they spawn,” Power said. “That really has provided tremendous dividends.”

Less successful, he says, has been stocking adult perch into lakes with already established populations.

“The results of that are a little more mixed,” Power said.

The upcoming trap-and-transport effort comes on the heels of a perch population that has lagged behind historic averages the past couple of years. Based on results from Game and Fish summer netting surveys, Devils Lake perch numbers have declined from 18.3 fish per net in 2021 to 8.8 fish per net in 2024. Much of that, Power says, is due to the cyclical nature of perch reproduction specifically and fish populations in general.

“Every prairie lake out there for every species, it’s all about ebbs and flows, peaks and valleys, and that’s certainly been the case at Devils Lake,” Power said. “Is it that bad right now? No – I mean, the last two years, it’s been below the long-term average.

“If you go back just four or five years ago, it was above it considerably.”

Game and Fish personnel, including department Director Jeb Williams, met with Devils Lake tourism interests over the summer to talk about the status of the perch fishery.

“The locals there at Devils Lake – in particular the guides and outfitters, but I think anybody that likes perch fishing – are concerned with where we’re going with the population,” Power said. “They requested us to do something more, so we’re going to re-look at moving adult perch into Devils Lake next spring.”

Brad Dokken / Grand Forks Herald file photo

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Mark Bry, a Devils Lake fishing guide and owner of Bry’s Guide Service, participated in the meetings last summer and said the Game and Fish Department’s willingness to stock adult perch was appreciated.

“We’re just trying to stay proactive,” Bry said. “I’ve learned a lot about perch in the last five-six months. The numbers are probably not as strong as they have been, but I think this is fairly common. A couple of years ago, we had really good perch fishing – 12- to 13-inch perch were kind of everywhere. We still have some big perch in the system, but I think they just want to try and enhance it a little bit more.”

Perch favor flooded vegetation for spawning, and when the wet cycle that raised Devils Lake by upwards of 20 feet began in 1993, the influx of water created ideal spawning conditions, Power said.

“What we got was just tremendous back to back to back year-classes of perch, which is very atypical, but that’s what happened,” he said. As lake levels stabilized and began declining, quality perch spawning habitat also became less abundant.

“Occasionally, we get a decent – maybe not a great, but a decent – year-class,” Power said. “It helps sustain a fishery for a while, then it falls off. And the last year or two, it’s been falling off.”

Contributed / North Dakota Game and Fish Department

As part of the upcoming stocking effort, department fisheries crews also plan to tag perch next spring in Devils Lake, Power said.

“We’re going to come up with a population estimate if we can get enough fish, to know where we sit for a while, and whether or not we’re adding enough (prespawn) fish to make a difference,” Power said. “Then we’ll monitor that for a few years thereafter.

“That population estimate is going to be critical to see where we’re sitting exactly for what’s out there and how much (stocking) can help this along.”

Still to be determined, he says, is where the adult perch being moved to Devils Lake will come from and how many fish Game and Fish crews can collect. Reproduction in many perch lakes across the state has declined, Power said, along with water levels in many of the new prairie lakes.

“To be honest, it’s going to be a lot more challenging for us to move enough perch because we just don’t have as many sources as we once had,” Power said. “It was pretty easy when we had a lot of perch lakes to move perch. It’s tougher now; we just don’t have surplus perch like we did 15 years ago.

“I think we’ll find a few lakes (from which) we can move fish, see if they can bring off a year-class and probably do that for a few years.”

Also on tap is a plan to raise the white bass limit from the current limit of 20 daily and 40 in possession to 30 daily and 60 in possession.

“We’re at a point where we can increase our white bass daily limit to more than what it is,” Power said. “There’s probably some interaction with perch and white bass predation (and) competition, but that might help a little bit.”

Walleyes are by far the most abundant species in the Game and Fish test nets, routinely accounting for upwards of 50% of the total catch.

“They’re going to have to balance walleye stocking, too,” Power said. “Walleye obviously are a predator. In the end, everybody wants the same thing – more walleye, more perch, big perch, big walleye; it just doesn’t happen that way.”

With stocking on the horizon, the 2025 perch hatch on Devils Lake also looks promising, Power says. Spring conditions “weren’t anything outstanding,” he says, but Devils Lake fisheries crews tallied a “respectable” perch hatch in 2025, based on results from the department’s annual young-of-the-year fish survey.

If those young perch make it through the winter, they could provide a natural boost to the population in a few years.

“I think we’ll be good,” said Bry, of Bry’s Guide Service. “Not every year can be a home run, and I think that’s just the thing people need to understand. You may not catch as many perch this winter – and we don’t know that for sure – but I think the future looks pretty good.

“I think it’s just kind of how this goes – the ups and downs of perch cycles; you get a couple of good years and a couple of average years.”

Stocking adult perch into Devils Lake isn’t unprecedented, but it’s been 20 years since the last effort. According to Game and Fish records, adult perch – anywhere from 2,000 to 7,000 – were stocked into Devils Lake in 1970, 1974, 1975, 1978 and 1992, a year when the fisheries crews also stocked 6.7 million perch fry.

More recently, Game and Fish stocked 76,000 adult perch into Devils Lake, along with 110,000 fingerlings, in 2005. That was followed by nearly 1.4 million fingerlings in 2006 and 931,000 fingerlings in 2007.

Contributed / North Dakota Game and Fish Department

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The fingerlings stocked during those three years were marked with oxytetracycline, a chemical that shows up in the ear bones when viewed under a microscope, to determine the survival and success of the stocking effort.

“Out of the three years stocked, 2007 produced a year-class that contributed to the fishery in later years,” Power said. “However, the large majority of the 2007 year-class originated from natural reproduction, as only 9% of the fish came from stocking.”

In other words, there are a lot of unknowns with the upcoming adult perch stocking, Power says – especially on a body of water the size of Devils Lake.

“If it was easy, it would have been done a long time ago,” he said. “But we’ll see what we can do.

“And to be fair, the group up there at Devils Lake, they totally understand that. They just would like us to do something, and they recognize there’s absolutely no guarantees.”