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The perch is a striking coloured fish with a dark green back, olive green sides, with six or seven black stripes along its side, its lower fins and often the lower part of the tail are a beautiful red.
Its camouflaging allows it to hide among weeds and reeds to wait for its prey to swim past before giving chase. The perch is a predatory fish, feeding on fry and other small species.
Male perch can be sexually active between six to twelve months old, where as for the female it is a lot later at about three years of age. Females tend to grow bigger than the males. Spawning occurs between march and June, when the female lays up to 300,000 eggs in long strands over weeds, reeds, twigs and other objects in the shallows.
Then after being fertilised the eggs hatch out about a week later, and the fry are soon feeding on water fleas and tiny crustaceans. Soon turning to insects and larvae as they grow, until big enough to feed on fry and small fish. Young perch hunt in schools chasing their prey until captured. The perch normally capture and eat there prey, tail first.
Perch prefer slow moving or still water, with a good head of prey species, and good visibility, which, is important for there way of hunting. So the water needs to be relatively clear and free from, to much suspended silt or sediment.
A specimen perch is 2lb (0.9kg) in weight with a fish of 4lb (1.8kg) being a fish of a life time.
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