What do yellow perch actually eat?
A lifelong climb up a food ladder. Fry start on zooplankton; by their first fall, young perch are grazing bottom invertebrates — midge and mayfly larvae, bloodworms, scuds, sowbugs — and that grazing remains the caloric backbone for most of the population for life. Past roughly 20 cm (8 in), the menu tilts toward crayfish (soft-shelled especially), darters and sculpins, minnows and shiners, young sunfish — and smaller perch. Know which rung your fish are on and you know what to tie: bug-sized baits for the flats crowd, minnow- and crayfish-profile baits for the big ones.
The full story
This answer is one piece of a longer lesson — setups, diagrams and the reasoning behind it.
More questions about Diet
- Do perch really eat each other?
- Why do tiny baits out-fish big ones so consistently?
- How does a shiner or shad forage base change the game?
- Do perch feed at night at all?
- What do the big jumbos eat that the small fish do not?
- Why is a piece of worm such a reliable perch bait — do perch eat worms and leeches naturally?
- What is simply too big for a perch — frogs, mice, suckers, ciscoes?
Same topic, other species
- Do crappie ever stop eating zooplankton? — Crappie
- What do largemouth actually eat? — Largemouth Bass
- What do muskie actually eat? — Muskellunge (Muskie)
- What do pike actually eat most? — Northern Pike
- How important are crayfish to smallmouth, really? — Smallmouth Bass
- How does a trout's diet change as it grows? — Trout (Rainbow · Brook · Lake)
- What do walleye mainly eat? — Walleye