Catching Silver Perch

Once you stock Silver Perch fingerlings into your dam you will not see them again. Generally there will be no outward indication of the fish. They are native fish and are very fast and smart. They will not cruise the shallows or swim along the surface like a goldfish will do. No sign of silvers is a good thing so do not be worried.

After 2 years most people would be keen to know how their fish are going and there are a few things you can do to check your fish:

• Feed them a floating food. It is recommended that you feed them proper silver perch pellets. These are a floating pellet that will bring the fish to the surface so you can see them. Perch pellets are available from Aquablue Seafoods. Otherwise you can feed them bread. Just a few slices of bread broken up into 25 mm square pieces is fine. Silver perch are creatures of habit; you must try and feed them the same time every day to get them into the routine. Generally in the afternoon after work is the best. It will take about 2 weeks for your silvers to recognize the food you are throwing in as food but once they do they will not forget. Just throw the food into the same spot every day at the same time. Initially you will see nothing but after a week you should start seeing the odd splash and after 2 weeks you should see them all as they are relatively fast learners. Just do it for another week and then you can start doing it intermittently as once they learn they will be in that spot everyday at that time looking for food.


• Go fishing. Just take your esky and a deck chair down to the side of the dam and throw in some fishing lines. Silvers will take flies and lures but it is very hard work for very limited results so bait fishing is generally the recommended method. Light lines and small hooks are the best. Garden worms or peeled frozen bait prawns the preferred baits. Only a third of a peeled prawn or one garden worm is best. Remember they have small mouths so small hooks and small baits. You can float fish but fishing directly on the bottom is the usual method. If you have been feeding your fish then that will make life easier as you can burly them up to your fishing area.


• Nets. The best and easiest method is just use a gill net. This is just a length of net 25 metres long on a rope which you suspend in the dam. Fish swim into it and get tangled and you just lift them out. It’s very effective and gives very surprising results. Gill nets are available from Aquablue.