a pond i fish at, about 2 years ago, had so many perch it was crazy.  i mean i would catch perch on massive crankbaits the same size as the perch themselves.  there were a few times i would even hook a perch in the tail, clearly it wasn't trying for the bait it was just that there were so many it was easy to catch one like that.

 

fast forward a few years and there are zero perch in the water.  i know one guy was taking like 30 home a day, but in a 10 acre pond where there were literally thousands of perch it seems, i can't imagine he caught ALL of them.  it's really bizarre.  what could make perch disappear?  do you think it's possible the guy taking 20+ home a day literally caught so many that there were no longer able to reproduce?

A 10-acre with a glut of yellow perch indicates a serious imbalance, and an accident waiting to happen.

Most likely, the pond is now in a transition phase, but it's a safe bet that yellow perch still reside in the pond.

If and when the original imbalance approaches equilibrium, I'm sure the perch fishery will return,

but not to the same overblown and unhealthy level. Hopefully, there'll be fewer but larger perch 

 

Roger

It's impossible for such a small pond to support such a huge perch population without sufficient predators to balance the ecosystem. I suspect the the perch ate themselves out of house & home! I'm surprised you didn't notice a fish kill.

Did a new predator fish get introduced into the pond? That combined with heavy angler predation might be to blame. I seriously doubt they've all been removed though. 

I can`t think of any resource that can`t be damaged by overfishing.

I consider perch to  be cyclic. To me they seem to have years of plenty coupled with other times of not so plentiful.