They are indeed good eating. Our lake has an abundant supply of all pan fish and the only species with limits are crappie. I alternate between flat fish (gills, sunnies and crappie) and yellow or white perch all winter. I fish for whatever is biting. To show how good a pan fishery we have... my best day last year for yellow perch was 183 pounds and late season last ice flat fish were close to 200 pounds in one day. I don't always get that type of catch but often have 100+ pound days for both types of fish. Some days are like today and I couldn't fill 5 gal dry wall bucket. Fishing every day obviously produces more fish than I can eat much less clean. We have fish buyers all around the lake who welcome the chance to buy and process our whole fish. These fish feed people in a variety of ways and the supply according to our biologists is self sustaining at least in Lake Champlain. Tomorrow will be another day.