What fish can live in very cold water?

divemaster99

Dovii
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Jan 10, 2014
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WTH thats the biggest one I've seen!
Haha, yeah that was my reaction when I caught it too. I caught it in Presque Isle Bay on Lake Erie. My dad has been (casually) perch fishing there since he was born and my family has been for 65 years (back in the days of the trophy Blue Pike fishery) and they never caught one over 14". I haven't broken the 14" mark either since that fish. Id love to catch one of those Redfin Perch that grow up to 24" some day.
 

Deedsta

Feeder Fish
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Apr 4, 2015
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Peacock bass and alligator gar can NOT survive freezing temperatures. They're tropical species, and are actually quite susceptible to freezing to death.

Some very well-known coldwater fish include lake trout, brook trout, Arctic char, grayling, arctic whitefish, burbot, sterlet, and lake smelt, but really any freshwater fish found more than 60% of the way up the northern hemisphere has to be cold tolerant... even if they will fail to thrive for long periods of time, most of them have the ability to survive temperatures nearing freezing.

If you're asking for freshwater aquarium species that are cold-tolerant, it's probably mainly cyprinids (carp, goldfish, dace, rosies, white clouds etc), although there are some specialist keepers out there (and on here) working with trout, sterlet, Siberian sturgeon, high-fin sharkminnow, and burbot.

Mosquitofish are also pretty cool, but most people find them drab and puny. I remember reading a story, it may have been on MFK, of someone who dumped a bunch of mosquitofish into a stock pond in their backyard during the summer and forgot about it until winter. Upon looking back, the mosquitofish were swimming around under the ice, picking at the hair algae.
I found a Siberian sturgeon for sell can they take heat as well?
 

Gill Blue

Piranha
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Apr 28, 2011
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if you've got that kind of water movement it must not be a closed pond, in which case you should only stock it with native local species to prevent contamination of your local water ways.
 

fatboy8

Piranha
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Mar 9, 2012
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This question and some of the replies like Gill Blue's kinda suck. You should really stick to Texas native fish so lmb, bluegills,crappie, and whatever strikes your interest that is native in the area. A sturgeon is definitely a no go due to the summer heat. If this is a closed system pond as in there is no streams feeding the pond/no chance of the pond flooding into another water soruce you can expand your range of fish to other natives that aren't found in the area but can tolerate the heat/cold. As for this whole freezing debat as long as the pond is deeper than 4ft in areas which is what is deemed as the freeze line the fish will do fine.
 

fatboy8

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Haha, yeah that was my reaction when I caught it too. I caught it in Presque Isle Bay on Lake Erie. My dad has been (casually) perch fishing there since he was born and my family has been for 65 years (back in the days of the trophy Blue Pike fishery) and they never caught one over 14". I haven't broken the 14" mark either since that fish. Id love to catch one of those Redfin Perch that grow up to 24" some day.
Few lakes in PA hold them up to 18". I managed one out of a North Central PA lake that I'm still considering getting replica mounted.
 

divemaster99

Dovii
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Jan 10, 2014
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Few lakes in PA hold them up to 18". I managed one out of a North Central PA lake that I'm still considering getting replica mounted.
It's crazy how (relatively) big these things get for a species considered small, they aren't even a panfish at that point! They might not give a big fight but I do love anchoring in a school after a day of Trout trolling and pulling up fish on all four hooks on a dropped rig! It doesn't take long to make dinner for two or four people at that point!
 

fatboy8

Piranha
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Mar 9, 2012
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It's crazy how (relatively) big these things get for a species considered small, they aren't even a panfish at that point! They might not give a big fight but I do love anchoring in a school after a day of Trout trolling and pulling up fish on all four hooks on a dropped rig! It doesn't take long to make dinner for two or four people at that point!
It came in on a 4" gold husky jerk over a weed bed. Thought it was a bass until it turned on it to take it and I saw the yellow belly and orange fins almost had the other guy in the boat jump in to grab it

image.jpeg
 
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MN_Rebel

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These perch do get very big, plenty of 18" ones in Lake of the Woods and Devil's Lake and last year someone pulled a 20" male perch out of Devil's Lake. I love to pull up the mixes of walleyes/saugers/jumbos for frying. Perch action is hot here. These perch in pictures is just 10-14" ones.

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