By Dan Cook
chattadan@aol.com
Cleveland's Jackie Kersey IV has his own special reason to celebrate the varied recreational offerings of Polk County's scenic Parksville Lake. On March 10, he caught a state-record yellow perch there.
The 2-pound, 2-ounce prize recently was confirmed as the state record for the species by the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency. It was 143/4 inches long.
Fishing from a boat with brothers Jimmy and Billy Headrick, Kersey caught the perch with a shiner. The three were casting for bass at the time - often the case when an unusually large panfish is nabbed, records-keepers say.
About two weeks before the perch catch, Kersey reeled a 5-pound, 1-ounce, 24-inch brown trout from the Parksville shoreline.
The perch was a nice follow-up. A Dalton taxidermist is mounting the record fish for Kersey.
"They (perch) were getting ready to spawn," he said, noting that the fish carried a lot of eggs. "We made the catch when the water was way down."
The Headricks got him into fishing about five years ago, Kersey said, and much about Parksville keeps him enthused.
The lake presents a panoramic view along U.S. Highway 64. Surrounding Cherokee National Forest vistas are attractions also, and the Ocoee River upstream bustles with rafters and kayakers during the summer.
But the lake is only 1,930 acres, and its fishing productiveness often is overlooked by anglers not from relatively close by. Larger southeastern Tennessee impoundments such as Watts Bar, Chickamauga and Nickajack attract many more fishermen.
The nearby Hiwassee River produced the previous state-record yellow perch, one weighing 1-15 that Danny Casson caught in 1992. David Lyons tied that record in 1996 in Melton Hill Lake.
Biologists note that yellow perch generally reach 4-10 inches long and the longest recorded is 21 inches. They regularly are caught in Canada and across the United States. Reaching maturity at 1-3 years, they can live up to 11.
Spawning usually occurs at the end of April or beginning of May. A single female can drop 10,000-40,000 eggs on submerged weeds or shrubs. The hatch usually occurs within 11-27 days, largely dependent upon climatic conditions.
The National Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame record for yellow perch kept is 4 pounds, 3 ounces - caught by Dr. C.C. Abbot in May 1865 in Bordentown, N.J. The all-tackle world-record length in the Catch and Release division of the Hayward, Wis., organization is 15 inches, just barely longer than Kersey's. Several that long were caught in Maryland, Delaware, Wisconsin and New York from 2001 to '09.