Our Perch Friends

For a long while, we had a school of friendly Perch swimming around our beach and dock. There were twelve of them to be exact! It was really nice to see them because that is a sign of a healthy lake. Plus, it is nice seeing all sorts of wildlife no matter which direction you turn your head!

These very friendly Perch were always hanging around our beach and dock, that is, until the kids insisted upon fishing and our little Perch friends immediately abandoned our beach and dock area for safer waters after Lukey caught one of the twelve. They left, obviously annoyed with us and terrified, and they haven't been back.

"Post Edit - June 22, 2017:  For days, I've been thinking about this problem of this school of Perch being run off due to fishing. There is now a new rule in place for the lake house...  "Absolutely no fishing from the property. If you want to fish, get in a boat and fish near the State land or out in deeper water away from the house." The fish were clearly scared off and have not come back at all even days later. Since there are no fish around here anymore, we have noticed that the loons have also avoided the area around our house since there is no longer fish for them to prey upon. The kids fishing off the dock (or anywhere on our property) has changed the dynamic here and this new dynamic is not what we want here at the lake house. So, absolutely no fishing from the property anymore." 

We still have a stray occasional Sunfish swimming around but it was nicer seeing the school of Perch with their distinctive stripes. Seeing so many of them swimming together was a nice sight too!

One afternoon, I put my little Sony action camera into its waterproof housing to see if I could get some video of the Perch from their point of view... 





I have quite a few video clips to put together when we get home. I have video shot from land, from the air, from kayaks, from sailboats... and I hope to capture even more!