Species sheet · The Edible River
Yellow perch
The little perch of the ice-fishing huts.
- Breaded and fried fillets, the Great Lakes perch fry
- Meunière with brown butter
- Deep-fried whole when small
- In French
- Perchaude
- Scientific name
- Perca flavescens
- In the water
- A North American perch, from the Great Lakes to the St. Lawrence. It lives in shoals in calm, weedy water near the shore.
- Season & buying
- Caught all year, and a lot in winter through the ice, in the hut villages of Quebec's lakes and the Great Lakes.
- Common length
- ~20 cm
- How to identify it
- Golden yellow flanks barred with six to eight dark bands
Two well-separated dorsal fins, the first one spiny
Orange-yellow lower fins
On the plate
White, firm, mild flesh, very close to that of the European perch.
Avoid: Scaling it: the rough scales resist; fillet it and remove the skin instead.
On Lac Saint-Pierre, on the St. Lawrence, fishing for it has been banned since 2012 to let the population recover.
In Umay recipes
One Umay recipe calls for it.
