{"id":272263,"date":"2026-08-26T01:46:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-26T01:46:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/272263\/"},"modified":"2026-08-26T01:46:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-26T01:46:12","slug":"springfield-angler-lands-rare-blue-perch-on-lake-erie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/272263\/","title":{"rendered":"Springfield angler lands rare blue perch on Lake Erie"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-46008\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Blue-Perch-523x600.jpg\" class=\"size-large wp-image-46008 lazyload\" alt=\"\" width=\"523\" height=\"600\"\/><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-46008\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-46008\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Blue-Perch-523x600.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"523\" height=\"600\"  \/> Brandy Levi holds the rare Blue Perch she caught during a charter trip on Lake Erie with Captain Bryan Azbell. (Submitted photo)<\/p>\n<p>BY CAPTAIN PEG VANVLEET<\/p>\n<p>Brandy Levi of Springfield, Ohio reeled in a once-in-a-lifetime catch on Saturday, Aug. 8, while fishing aboard the Beth Ann with Captain Bryan \u201cFingers\u201d Azbell. Levi brought in an exceptionally rare Blue Perch, a naturally occurring but highly uncommon bluepigmented variation of the standard yellow perch.<\/p>\n<p>Azbell said it is only the second time in his long career that he has seen a Blue Perch, and he once saw a Blue Walleye.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s caused by a deficiency of pigmentation in the skin of the fish, similar to a piebald White-tailed Deer,\u201d Azbell said.<\/p>\n<p>The fish was caught during a perch charter on Lake Erie, and Levi has chosen to have the unique specimen mounted.<\/p>\n<p>Longtime Lake Erie charter captain\u00a0Peg VanVleet\u00a0of Blue Sky Charters noted that despite decades on the water, she has never encountered a Blue Perch. Even fisheries biologist Travis Hartman expressed surprise when he saw the photo.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was a 10 \u00bd-inch perch, so it was a nice perch,\u201d Azbell said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brandy Levi holds the rare Blue Perch she caught during a charter trip on Lake Erie with Captain&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":272264,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[136,138,137],"class_list":["post-272263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-erie","tag-erie","tag-erie-headlines","tag-erie-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=272263"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272263\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/272264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}