4 U. §. BUREAU OF FISHERIES 
Throughout its range it is taken nearly the year round, and in 
spite of the zeal with which it is pursued, on account of its fine 
food qualities and the ease with which it is captured, it appears to be 
maintaining its numbers well, a condition that may be attributed, 
perhaps, to its hardiness and the facility with which it responds to 
artificial cultural methods. 
As a table article it ranks high. The smaller fish are delicious 
fried, broiled, or boiled, while the larger ones, weighing from 5 to 
15 pounds, are excellent when baked. The flesh is firm and well 
flavored, even in the warmest weather. Few fish stand shipment, 
holding, or freezing better than pike perch. It is not so well adapted 
to salting as some species, but this is not important, as the demand 
for it is so great that the supply is always disposed of fresh or 
frozen. The abdominal cavity is comparatively small and the head 
medium, so that little loss occurs in dressing. The bones are some- 
what numerous, but they are generally large and easily separated. 
The gray and yellow varieties are considered superior to the blue 
for food, and are also better game fish. 
The pike perch, although capricious, is readily caught with baited 
hook, artificial fly, spoon, etc., and deserves high rank as a game fish. 
About 100 tons are taken annually with hook and line through the 
ice about the Bass Islands, Lake Erie; large quantities are also 
thus caught near Buffalo, N. Y., in Saginaw Bay, Mich., and else- 
where. In ice fishing small minnows are generally used, the bait 
being taken near the bottom. 
FEEDING HABITS 
Although the pike perch is predaceous, observations would seem 
to show that it devours fewer desirable species than any other 
predatory fish. Its main food in Lake Erie the year round is a 
small cyprinoid, usually called lake shiner, which abounds in these 
waters, with occasionally crawfish in the winter and the larve of 
insects and the insects themselves in the warmer months. A pike 
perch weighing 1614 pounds has been caught containing a bullhead, 
which, in its partly digested condition, weighed 9 ounces. The 
stomachs of hundreds have been opened at all seasons of the year 
and under various conditions, and the examinations have as yet failed 
to disclose one containing a whitefish, black bass, or other valuable 
fish. Usually the stomach was empty, so far as the unassisted eye 
could discover, except for a thick, tough, greenish-yellow slime. 
The pike perch does not generally inhabit the depths of waters 
frequented by the black bass, preferring the deeper portions of the 
shallow parts of the lake. Excepting the blue-pike variety, it is not 
found in deep water, which is the home of the whitefish during all 
the year except for a short period in the fall during its reproductive 
migrations. And even the blue pike does not inhabit the deep waters 
where the whitefish and cisco spend most of their lives. 
SPAWNING HABITS AND SPAWN-TAKING 
The pike perch is not a nest-builder, as are the basses and sunfishes. 
The female discharges her spawn in shoal waters, the male follow- 
ing and emitting milt in proximity to the eggs. The spawning time 
