FISHES AND PISHING IN SUNAPEE LAKE. 



87 



It is a voracious, carnivorous fish, residing in the colder waters of 

 the lake or river that it inhabits, for which reason its successful 

 acclimatization in Sunapee Lake would have been deplorable, as it 

 there would have inhabited the same waters with trout and salmon. 



Fia. 4.— Pike perch. 



The State Fish and Game Report for 1876 says: 



In May fish were procured from Alburg, Lake Champlain, and some of them planted 

 in Sunapee Lake, probably the waters most suitable to successful fish propagation in 

 our State . 



Nothmg further has been reported regarding this plant, and upon 

 the whole it is undoubtedly fortunate that this is so. 



Perch {Perca jiavescens) . 



The perch is a common fish in most New England fresh waters, and 

 in many places it fairly swarms. It is carnivorous and almost 

 omnivorous in that direction. It subsists mamly, however, upon 

 small fishes and insects and is very destructive to young fishes and 

 fish eggs. 



The perch reaches a weight of at least 2 pounds in some waters, 

 but as most commonly known averages not over one-half pound as a 

 hook-and-line fish. It is a delectable pan fish, notwithstanding 

 prejudices based upon fallacious or mistaken reasons entertained 

 toward it. While its young afford food for other species of fish as 

 well as itself, it in turn devours the young of others. The perch 

 seems to have been indigenous to Sunapee Lake and at one time to 

 have abounded there, as indicated in this paper by reference to it in 

 connection with the black bass. 



Wherever the perch abound the young are always conspicuously 

 manifest about the shores and in shallow water, especially along 

 beaches. But in the two seasons that the Bureau of Fisheries party 

 made observations at Sunapee not a single young yellow perch was 

 seen, and the only adult seen was one 12 inches long found dead at the 

 surface on July 28, 1911, below the narrows. It showed no indication 

 of having been hooked and there were no other lesions to which its 



