Perch: A perpetual problem at Phillips

Catching yellow perch is easy.

Catching enough yellow perch to make a significant difference in the quality of a once-popular Baker County fishing hole requires rather more effort.

Which is why the Oregon Legislature should make a long-term commitment to the fledgling campaign to control the perch population in Phillips Reservoir near Baker City and so restore the reservoir’s reputation for rainbow trout.

The brief background: About 20 years ago someone illegally released yellow perch in the reservoir.

The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) had been managing Phillips as a rainbow trout fishery, and with noteworthy success.

Anglers regularly hooked their limit of the hatchery-raised trout, and multi-pound rainbow were not uncommon in creels.

But the rainbow fared badly against the amazingly reproductive perch.

In less than a decade, perch had become the predominant fish in Phillips.

Turns out, though, that a lot of people would rather hook a rainbow.

And even anglers who are satisfied with perch lost interest in Phillips as the average size of fish shrank. That typically happens when the fish population rapidly expands but the supply of food stays steady.

Fortuitously, Idaho’s fish and game agency offered in 2004 to take some perch off Oregon’s hands to stock in Cascade Reservoir near McCall.

About 300,000 perch, in fact, were netted at Phillips during the springs of 2004 and 2005.

This paring of the perch proved beneficial. Anglers caught more trout, and the average size of the perch increased.

The benefits, though, were temporary.

There was no perch-trapping operation in 2006, 2007 or 2008. The fecund fish rapidly replenished the population, and the same old problems resurfaced.

The anti-perch offensive resumed last spring and continued again this year, with about 350,000 fish removed.

Unfortunately, ODFW has set aside money for only one more year of perch trapping, which the agency calls a “pilot project,” said Tim Bailey, a fish biologist at ODFW’s regional office in La Grande. He estimates the yearly cost at a very modest $20,000.

The results of the initial trapping effort in 2004 and 2005 proved that a consistent approach, even in two consecutive years, can yield real progress.

It’s time for ODFW to make perch-trapping a yearly ritual at Phillips Reservoir.