Anyone eat them. Been catching decent sized white perch about every 7-8th crappie I catch. I know yellow perch is good eats, but never had white perch.
as someone who grew up on lake erie catchin em all my life…yellow perch is 100x better than whties but although we always regarded them as trash fish and fed em to seagulls they arent really that bad deep fried. if youve ever had white bass before thats the closest thing i can think of to them.
I fillet them and my wife says she thinks they are almost as good as crappie. They don’t have as much “red” meat in them as a white bass or striper. They’ll bite almost anything. Cutbait, minnows, red worms, small jigs or crankbaits and of course my favorite Berry’s spoons. I’ve actually caught 3 at a time bumping 2 crappie jigs tied above a Berry’s spoon. When one hits, with this rig, just keep the line tight on it for a few seconds before winding it in and the others will usually load up on the other baits. In Murray fishing shallow I’ve watched several trying to take the bait away from the one on the hook. That’s what gave me the idea to try the double and then triple rig.
Good eating, if they are big enough (little ones too, but too much trouble). Yep, there is better, but more on the worse side.
Watch out for the sharp edge of the gill cover. It can cut you pretty badly. Also, the perch have some tough scales, try one of the electric fish cleaning knives. That makes cleaning 50 or 60 perch a breeze.