I must confess to a bit of a love/hate relationship when it comes to yellow perch.

At times, they've provided fast action for quality-sized fish. During others, pesky “mini perch” have created a nuisance when targeting other species.

Not surprisingly, yellow perch provide similar benefits to the fisheries they inhabit. Fish over nine inches in length are treasured by anglers. Smaller ones are favored by larger gamefish. For both human and finned predators, the reason is the same, for the food they provide.

Yellow perch can sometimes exist in huge numbers. During a late-fall trip made last season by Sid Brown and me, we marked huge schools of baitfish on the sonar unit, ones holding off structure in 25- to 30-feet of water. On nearly every drop with a blade bait, we'd catch a yellow perch. By the end of the day, we'd caught dozens, none of which were over five-inches long.

On spots where we normally catch smallmouth bass and northern pike, we came up with little. I suspect the glut of natural food had something to do with this.

Young perch can also be problematic for the walleye angler. 'Crawler harnesses slowly trolled along weed edges and over shallow humps can be a winning tactic for late-spring walleyes on Pymatuning Lake. But you'd better bring lots of 'crawlers because the perch are commonly a persistent biter.

Not only do they nip off the end of the bait, but often get deep-hooked on the trailing hook of a two-hook harness.

This leaves you with the dilemma of safely unhooking the undersized perch without destroying the harness, but it's a two-edged sword, as perch are favored walleye fodder, and the likely reason the walleyes are present.

Interestingly, Pymatuning has also provided me with some of my best yellow perch fishing on inland lakes.

It was a few years ago that I located large numbers of 10- to 13-inch yellow perch during the late fall and early winter. The fish were relating to a large mid-lake hump that tops off in four feet of water. The perch were holding along the hump's edge in 18 to 20 feet as I recall, marking well on the sonar unit.

Using Hopkins jigging spoons, Dave Lehman and I caught dozens of nice perch during a string of consecutive trips that spanned three December weeks. Yellow perch populations can be cyclic, and though I've since taken fish during that same time frame from this spot, they've not been the same size.

Piney Dam, a long, narrow impoundment of the Clarion River, flies under the radar regarding its yellow perch fishery. Our family has owned a camp not far from Piney for decades; some of my earliest fishing memories took place along its rocky shore. We caught nice yellow perch there then. I still do 50-plus years later.

During the past few years, I've witnessed a surge in the yellow perch population within Pool 6 of the Allegheny River. Whereas a perch catch was an isolated thing, it's now become relatively common. During a guide trip a week or so ago, my client caught several keeper-sized perch right among walleyes.

Mention yellow perch to many an area angler and you'll likely conjure up a conversation that involves Lake Erie. Indeed, Erie perch draw anglers from afar. The last couple of years have been challenging, though. A common theory is that with walleye populations at a high level, the perch aren't schooling up as they typically do.

I've never targeted yellow perch in Erie, but I've bumped into them at times while fishing for small-mouth bass. It's remarkable how quickly one will forgo a chance at five-pound smallies when a pack of biting perch is revealed — a reminder of how the species serves both anglers and other fish populations.

Jeff Knapp is an outdoors columnist for the Butler Eagle