Nile Perch: How Big They Get, the Record, and Where to Catch One

A Nile perch can grow to about 2 m (6 ft 7 in) and 200 kg (440 lb). The IGFA world record weighs 230 lb. It’s an African fish, from the Nile, the big West African rivers and the Rift Valley lakes. You won’t find one in any US water, and you can’t bring a live one into the country. If you want one, you’re going to Egypt’s Lake Nasser, to Uganda or to Lake Victoria.

Texas stocked Nile perch in its reservoirs from 1978 to 1985. The last one on record turned up in Smithers Reservoir in January 1990: a 60 lb fish, thought to have died of the cold.

How big do Nile perch get?

Up to about 2 m (6 ft 7 in) and 200 kg (440 lb). That’s the top size the U.S. Geological Survey and FishBase both give. The fish you’d hook is smaller: the 2016 federal rule that banned imports puts the average at 1 m (3.3 ft).

Nile perch mature at 60 to 90 cm (24 to 35 in), says the USGS. Males can spawn at one to two years old, females at one to four. The biggest fish measured in one lake are a good check on the 2 m figure. FishBase gives a top length of 180 cm (5 ft 11 in) for Lake Albert, with a heaviest fish there of 164 kg (362 lb).

On a trip, expect smaller again. African Angler, an outfitter on Lake Nasser, says most of its anglers can count on at least one fish of 50 lb or more. With a fly rod, it puts your usual fish at 10 to 40 lb.

What is the Nile perch world record?

The IGFA all-tackle record is 230 lb (104.32 kg), caught by William Toth on Lake Nasser, Egypt, on December 20, 2000. The same fish holds the 30 lb line-class record. The heaviest one on a fly weighed 110 lb 3 oz (50 kg). Wayne Haselau caught it on 16 lb tippet at Rubondo Island, Lake Victoria, in 1994.

The length record is newer. Christopher S.G. Tan’s fish from Murchison Falls, Uganda, measured 146 cm (57.5 in) on August 7, 2019. The IGFA has 22 different Nile perch records on its books, and the chart up top counts where they came from.

Lake Victoria holds 15 of them, all set between 1989 and 2003. Lake Nasser holds the two heaviest: the 230 lb fish and a 210 lb (95.25 kg) one from 1998. The best junior fish is Alexander Wipfler’s 120 lb 2 oz (54.5 kg) from Murchison Falls in 2000.

Big as it is, the Nile perch isn’t the largest freshwater fish in the record book. The arapaima record is heavier, at 339 lb 8 oz (154 kg). So is the wels catfish record, 297 lb 9 oz (134.97 kg). A Mekong giant catfish netted in Thailand in 2005 weighed 646 lb, close to three times the Nile perch record.

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Where can you go Nile perch fishing?

Go to Lake Nasser if you want the biggest fish on record. Go to Murchison Falls if you’d rather fish a river in a national park. The table shows what the record book and the sources say. Rules change, so ask your lodge for the current permit before you book.

On Ade Kiddell’s Lake Nasser trip, written up for Angling Direct in 2020, the main method was trolling lures behind the boat. Multiplier reels with 50 lb braid went to a 100 lb mono leader. Big deep-diving crankbaits worked the deep water, and Shad Raps and smaller countdowns the shallow spots.

He changed every hook for a stronger one and took the middle treble hook off three-hook lures. The fish he describes ran around 20 lb. African Angler also lets you cast lures from shore on Lake Nasser. It says its boats broke “the last 3 (IGFA approved) Nile perch all tackle world records”.

What does a Nile perch look like?

A big, deep-bodied fish with a dark grayish-blue back and silver sides. The tail is rounded. The USGS notes spines on the bones around the eye and a large one on the edge of the gill cover. Mind that spine when you handle one. Discover Wildlife describes dark eyes ringed in bright yellow. Young fish look different: brownish, with lighter marbling.

If it reminds you of a snook, you’re right. The IGFA says the top of the head is “strongly depressed, as in the barramundi and its relative across the sea, the snook”. It has two dorsal fins, a spiny one in front and a soft one behind.

Is a Nile perch a perch?

No. It’s a lates, in the same genus as the barramundi, and not related to the yellow perch. The IGFA and Texas still file it with the snooks (Centropomidae), and FishBase gives the lates their own family, Latidae. Our page on what counts as a perch sorts out the whole family of borrowed names. On a US seafood label, the FDA’s Seafood List requires Lates niloticus to be sold as “Nile perch”, not plain “perch”.

Nile perch vs barramundi: same genus, different continents. The barramundi’s IGFA record is 98 lb 6 oz (44.64 kg), from Lake Monduran, Queensland, Australia, in 2010. The Nile perch record is more than twice that.

You’ll hear it called many things on a trip:

In ancient Egypt the fish was sacred, Discover Wildlife notes. Some were mummified, and the city of Esna was once named Latopolis after it.

Where do Nile perch live?

Across much of tropical Africa. FishBase lists the Senegal, Niger, Volta, Chad and Nile basins, the Congo basin, and lakes Albert, Turkana and Tana. In the Nile, the USGS puts it below Murchison Falls. It also lives in brackish Lake Mariout, near Alexandria.

You’ll find adults deep, at 10 to 60 m (33 to 197 ft), and the young shallow, FishBase says. The federal rule gives 28 °C (82 °F) as the best water temperature and 38 °C (100 °F) as the top limit. Cold kills them sooner: the USGS cites lower limits of 12 to 15 °C (54 to 59 °F). Cold water is the likely end of the Texas fish. Nile perch also need well-oxygenated water, which mostly keeps them out of swamps.

They eat what’s there. Fish under 5 cm eat zooplankton, young fish eat insects and shrimp, and adults eat mostly fish. Where small fish are plentiful, the USGS notes, they start eating them at just 4 cm (1.6 in) long.

What happened when Nile perch reached Lake Victoria?

It took over the lake. Drop a big predator into a lake of small fish and you get the textbook invasive species. The USGS says the introduction “caused the extinction of at least 200 species of endemic fishes”. The federal rule tells it step by step:

1. 1954: Nile perch from Lake Albert are put into Lake Victoria on the Ugandan side.
2. 1954–1955: they go into Lake Kyoga, as a test of what they would do to Lake Victoria. No one knew they were already in Victoria.
3. 1962: a breeding population exists in Lake Victoria.
4. 1962–1963: more are stocked in Kenyan and Ugandan waters to start a commercial fishery.
5. 1979: the boom shows in Kenyan waters, two to three years later in Uganda and four to five in Tanzania.
6. 1980s: the Nile perch becomes the lake’s dominant fish.
7. Today: more than 90 percent of the fish weight near the bottom is Nile perch.

Here’s the lake before and after, in the numbers the federal rule and the USGS give:

That egg count is how it spread so fast. A Nile perch spawns all year, more in the rainy season. Without the cichlids, algae bloomed and used up oxygen. The species is on the list of the world’s 100 worst invaders.

The same fish built an industry. The USGS says the fishery brought electricity and money to fishing villages that had lived on subsistence fishing. Now the pressure runs the other way: mesh-size limits on gill nets were brought in to protect the stock. Discover Wildlife writes that overfishing has since driven the lake’s Nile perch “to the brink”. Globally the species is rated Least Concern (IUCN, 2019), unlike the fish on our endangered freshwater fish list.

Are there Nile perch in the United States?

No. Texas tried, and the fish died out. Since 2016 you can’t bring a live Nile perch into the country without a federal permit, and only zoos, schools and labs get one. A fish farm can’t import either.

What happened in Texas, from the USGS and the federal rule:

1. 1975: Nile perch from Lake Turkana, Kenya, go to the Heart of the Hills Research Station in Ingram, Texas.
2. 1978–1984: almost 70,000 young Lates go into Victor Braunig, Coleto Creek and Fairfield reservoirs. The hope was sport fishing, and fewer carp, gizzard shad and buffalo.
3. 1985: six Nile perch go into Smithers Reservoir, with two other Lates species.
4. January 1990: one fish of 115.5 cm and 60 lb (27.2 kg) is collected from Smithers. It probably died of cold water.
5. Today: “All populations are probably extirpated,” the USGS says.

The worry is the warm states. The federal rule found a high climate match for Florida and the Gulf Coast, California, Hawaii, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Imports were small even before the ban. From 2011 to 2015 there were 25 import events for Nile perch and three other listed species together, worth $5,789 in all.

The ban makes the Nile perch an injurious species under the Lacey Act, the same status as the wels catfish. The Texas line names the whole genus, so it covers the barramundi too.

Is Nile perch good to eat?

Yes, and eating it is why Nile perch went into Lake Victoria. In a US store, the FDA’s Seafood List has it sold as “Nile perch”. The federal ban covers live fish only, so fillets can still come in.

Pick a fresh fillet by color and smell, says a Kenyan food column in The Standard. You want deep pink flesh and no fishy smell at all. Cooked, it turns white, with a sweet, savory flavor and a flaky texture. It’s a fatty fish. Around Lake Victoria it’s smoked rather than sun-dried, which added to the demand for firewood in a region already short of trees.

Why did the Nile perch spread so fast?

Three things made the Nile perch so hard to stop. It spawns all year and lays millions of eggs. It starts eating fish at a tiny size. And it can mature in one to four years. In Lake Victoria, full of small cichlids, that was enough.

The cold is the one limit it hasn’t beaten, which is why the Texas fish never made it. For the other odd ones out, from the air-breathing arapaima to the alligator gar, see the other freshwater fish hub.

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