Big Neds

[Shady]

I've spent many winters fishing with a lot of the OGs from this board for yellow perch. Have been chasing down that citation sized fish since. Finally, this year I found her and if that wasn't enough only three weeks later, I found another even bigger. Posting these up in homage to the old SL days fishing the Susky with 10 of my kayak buddies for those mostly little ringperch. These big beauties were released to make more trophies.
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[Jigsup]

Wow nice! Beautiful fish!

[J.A. Veil]

Nice work, Ryan. You continue to catch quality fish year round. Those are good looking neds.

[dsaavedra]

Wow, those are some huge perch! Congrats on the citation catches.

Does anybody know why they are nicknamed "neds"? I've wondered this before and never found an answer...

[Mark]

Ryan,

Congratualations on the citation catches.

Last winter I watched hundreds of them shimmy through water only inches deep sliding over rocks and logs on their Magothy spawning run.

But none of them came close in size to the yellow perch in your photos.

[J. Rentch]

Nice going, eastern or western shore?

[Shady]

Western shore

[Mark]

Wow, those are some huge perch! Congrats on the citation catches.

Does anybody know why they are nicknamed "neds"? I've wondered this before and never found an answer...

I did a little Googling. This may be the answer...

There is an angler from the midwest named Ned Kehde who invented the "Ned Rig" in the 1950s/60s. A "Ned Rig" is a small jig and soft plastic for finese fishing presentations in cold water. The rig is a popular lure for bass and yellow perch.

I found no article that directly connects the name of the rig to yellow perch and certainly no one refers to bass or other fish species as Neds.

But it may be more than a coincidence that a popular yellow perch lure is another name for the fish itself.

It would be interesting to see if "Ned" was ever used describe a yellow perch prior Kehde's invention of the lure. I tried but could find no reference to support that.

So, maybe another name Yellow Perch is the lure that is so effective in catching them.

Anyway, Google "Ned Kehde" and "Ned Rig" and you'll see lots of mentions of yellow perch.

[J.A. Veil]

Mark - I did some similar searching yesterday and found many references to the "ned rig". Today I went back to Google and tried a variety of different search terms. The one that produced the earliest reference was "yellow ned fish". This shows a Pennsylvania Fish Commission annual report from 1895 (see the second line).

yellow ned.jpg

Here is the URL to get to this page: https://books.google.com/books?id=nk...20fish&f=false

So while not explaining the derivation of the term yellow ned, it does suggest that the term was used almost 130 years ago.

[Mark]

John,

Good investigative work!

That blows my Ned Kehde theory.

An interesting statement in the article you found is that it refers to yellow perch as cousins of black bass and striped bass. Obviously, they did not mean that in the scientific fish family sense. My understanding is yellow perch are related to walleyes.

[Mark]

Snaggedliners,

I give up.

I can find nothing online that explains why a yellow perch is also called a ned.

However, I learned that Ned is the name of a tugboat in a children's book. Note that Ned is yellow. (Available on Amazon, of course.) :

NedBook.jpg

NED is a poster campaign in UK schoolrooms to encourage students to succeed:

NedPoster.jpg

A restaurant in Nederland, Colorado -- painted yellow:

NedsRestaurant.jpg
Also...

In Scotland a ned is a hooligan -- " a young person who behaves in a rude and sometimes violent or criminal way".

A male name -- "English origin that means Wealthy Guardian. Most often a diminutive of the name Edward or other names starting with Ed".

NED is an acronym with various meanings in medicine and business.

Finally, I found alternate names for yellow perch in addition to ned include: "American perch, coontail, lake perch, raccoon perch, ring-tail perch, ringed perch, and striped perch".

So that's it for me. The reason that yellow perch are called neds will remain a Snaggedline mystery until a forum member can reveal the secret.

But just think of all the useless "Ned" information we have learned because of Dave's intriguing question: Does anybody know why they are nicknamed "neds"?

Happy 2023 to all.

[dsaavedra]

Lol.... Mark... this is great haha. Thanks for searching deep.

It is interesting to hear that they have been called neds in this area since the 1800s according to the PA paper. I wonder if that name is colloquial to this region only, similar to how crappie are called "sac-a-lait" in Louisiana and "speckled perch" in other areas of the South.

[Slobber Bob]

Pretty fish, Ryan!

[Red_Beard]

Great looking fish, Ryan! How deep are you fishing to catch them this time of year?

[nhunter344]

Nice fish!

The only thing I know about yellow perch is that every year, without fail, I forget about the sharp part of their gill plate and stab myself with it.