Blue suckers! Sturgeon! Electricity!

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Gunnar
Gunnar's picture
Blue suckers! Sturgeon! Electricity!
<p>No, I didn&#39;t catch a blue sucker.</p> <p>Yet.</p> <p>I did get to spend a day on the Wisconsin River in a Wisconsin DNR electrofishing boat. Our target species were shovelnose sturgeon and blue suckers. We got both. I wrote more about it on my site (<a href="http://moxostoma.com/blue-sucker-in-the-hand/">http://moxostoma.com/blue-sucker-in-the-hand/</a>) so I&#39;ll just hit a few key points:</p> <ul> <li> I got to see and handle a mess of blue suckers</li> <li> I got to see and handle a mess of shovelnose and 2 lake sturgeon</li> <li> I got to see hundreds of other fish, including a huge number of suckers of many species</li> <li> I got to see my first paddlefish ever</li> <li> I didn&#39;t fall out of the boat and get electrocuted (600 volts, 20 amps, I think)</li> <li> They&#39;re doing research preparatory to building a passage around the Prairie du Sac dam so that blue suckers, paddlefish and both sturgeon species can get to more of the river, where they historically lived and spawned</li> </ul> <p>Some photos:</p> <p><a href="http://www.roughfish.com/~roughfis/sites/default/files/bluesucker_5-15-2013_fullbody_8665.jpg"><img alt="" src="http://www.roughfish.com/~roughfis/sites/default/files/bluesucker_5-15-2013_fullbody_8665.jpg" style="width: 650px; height: 305px;" /></a></p> <p>John Lyons holding a blue sucker. For some reason this is the only full-body shot I took of a blue all day.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><a href="http://www.roughfish.com/~roughfis/sites/default/files/bluesucker-5-15-2013_head_8694.jpg"><img alt="" src="http://www.roughfish.com/~roughfis/sites/default/files/bluesucker-5-15-2013_head_8694.jpg" style="width: 650px; height: 435px;" /></a></p> <p>Blue sucker with tubercles</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><a href="http://www.roughfish.com/~roughfis/sites/default/files/bluesucker-5-15-2013_lips1_8695.jpg"><img alt="" src="http://www.roughfish.com/~roughfis/sites/default/files/bluesucker-5-15-2013_lips1_8695.jpg" style="width: 650px; height: 722px;" /></a></p> <p>Blue sucker lips. If you ever wondered what the word &quot;papillose&quot; means...</p> <p><br /> <a href="http://www.roughfish.com/~roughfis/sites/default/files/bluesucker-5-15-2013_lips2_8673.jpg"><img alt="" src="http://www.roughfish.com/~roughfis/sites/default/files/bluesucker-5-15-2013_lips2_8673.jpg" style="width: 650px; height: 805px;" /></a></p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><a href="http://www.roughfish.com/~roughfis/sites/default/files/lakesturgeon_5-15-2013_WisconsinRiver_8664.jpg"><img alt="" src="http://www.roughfish.com/~roughfis/sites/default/files/lakesturgeon_5-15-2013_WisconsinRiver_8664.jpg" style="width: 650px; height: 435px;" /></a></p> <p>The only other time I&#39;ve touched a lake sturgeon was in a tank at the aquarium in Dubuque. This was way, way, way better. I think it was around 40 pounds. It took two of us to net it: one got a net on the head, the other on the tail. I don&#39;t remember which end I netted. It didn&#39;t enjoy riding in the tank, so I got to enjoy being cooled off by sturgeon-tail-powered splashes for a while.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>Shovelnose top and bottom views:</p> <p><a href="http://www.roughfish.com/~roughfis/sites/default/files/shovelnose-top-5-15-2013_8682.jpg"><img alt="" src="http://www.roughfish.com/~roughfis/sites/default/files/shovelnose-top-5-15-2013_8682.jpg" style="width: 650px; height: 992px;" /></a></p> <p><a href="http://www.roughfish.com/~roughfis/sites/default/files/shovelnose-under-5-15-2013_8675.jpg"><img alt="" src="http://www.roughfish.com/~roughfis/sites/default/files/shovelnose-under-5-15-2013_8675.jpg" style="width: 650px; height: 970px;" /></a></p> <p><a href="http://www.roughfish.com/~roughfis/sites/default/files/shovelnose-tail-filament-WI-river-5-15-2013_8678.jpg"><img alt="" src="http://www.roughfish.com/~roughfis/sites/default/files/shovelnose-tail-filament-WI-river-5-15-2013_8678.jpg" style="width: 650px; height: 313px;" /></a></p> <p>I failed to take any full-body shots of shovelnose at all. Did get this tail that still had a filament.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>Right before we finished, this amorous river redhorse surfaced and went into the tank. Cool fish.</p> <p><a href="http://www.roughfish.com/~roughfis/sites/default/files/riverredhorse_5-15-2013_head-on-tubercles_8692.jpg"><img alt="" src="http://www.roughfish.com/~roughfis/sites/default/files/riverredhorse_5-15-2013_head-on-tubercles_8692.jpg" style="width: 650px; height: 774px;" /></a></p> <p><a href="http://www.roughfish.com/~roughfis/sites/default/files/riverredhorse_5-15-2013_head-sideview_8686.jpg "><img alt="" src="http://www.roughfish.com/~roughfis/sites/default/files/riverredhorse_5-15-2013_head-sideview_8686.jpg " style="width: 650px; height: 439px;" /></a><br /> &nbsp;</p> <p><a href="http://www.roughfish.com/~roughfis/sites/default/files/riverredhorse_5-15-2013_sideview_8684.jpg"><img alt="" src="http://www.roughfish.com/~roughfis/sites/default/files/riverredhorse_5-15-2013_sideview_8684.jpg" style="width: 650px; height: 428px;" /></a></p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>Totals for the day: 17 blue suckers, 39 shovelnose, 2 lake sturgeon.</p> <p>It was an awesome trip. I hope to do it again some day so I can get video of all the fish surfacing (and shortheads and quillbacks launching themselves out of the water) and so I can take more and better photos of these cool fish.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>&nbsp;</p>
Surfraider
Cool!

Excellent photos. Read the post on your website sounds like a blast helping out. You're right that it does give you interesting perspective what is really below the surface.

Cast_and_Blast
Cast_and_Blast's picture
Thanks for posting.  Excellen

Thanks for posting.  Excellent pics and great read.

perkinsdonald
perkinsdonald's picture
thanks for sharing!
Very cool man!!! Thanks for sharing! Did you drag net at all?

 

 

The gods do not subtract the alotted span in men's lives the hours spent in fishing.

Eli
Eli's picture
Awesome photos!! I'd love to

Awesome photos!! I'd love to spend a day or two doing that.

Eli

 

 

Tyler W
Tyler W's picture
Habitat

One hour of electrofishing will teach you more about fish than you can learn by reading in a year (maybe longer). I too was shocked at the number of fish, and the way they are grouped.

So what areas did you get blues in? And what species were they associated with? Shortheads? Silvers? Shovelnose? Did they come in clusters or was it one at a time?

Dr Flathead
Dr Flathead's picture
Cool stuff!  17 Blue Suckers

Cool stuff!  17 Blue Suckers is a really good number of them.  Must have been very exciting to see them.