Zander

The pikeperch is the largest native member of the perch family and a prized, elegant predatory fish. In the Franconian Saale it finds ideal holding spots in the deep, slow-flowing and rather turbid sections of the lower river, such as the impounded and mouth areas like the up to roughly five-metre-deep impoundment above the Gräfendorf weir. As a crepuscular and nocturnal hunter it chases its prey in open water and close to the bottom, without ambush cover.

How to identify it

Three features suffice at the water: several large, pointed fangs (canine teeth), large, dull silvery reflecting glassy eyes, and a slim, spindle-shaped body with two clearly separated dorsal fins and rows of dark spots on the dorsal and tail fins.

Look-alikes

From the stocky, high-backed perch he is set apart by the canine teeth, the absence of the black spot on the first dorsal fin and the lack of red fins; from the pike he differs by his two separate dorsal fins instead of the single rearward one, and by a head without the duck-bill snout.