FAMILY CATOSTOMIDAE 129 



sippi River below the Bemidji power dam, and at one place, in an eddy, 

 J eggs had accumulated to a depth of 18 to 24 inches over an area of some 

 1500 square feet. Suckers have great reproductive potentials, producing 

 from 36,000 to 130,000 eggs, depending on size. A large female 20 inches 

 long contained nearly 140,000 eggs. 



Suckers seldom bite on a baited hook but are frequently taken in 

 nets and seines. Most of them are caught during spawning migrations, 

 when they crowd into the shallow streams in such numbers that they 

 can be literally scooped from the water and may even be caught with 

 the bare hands. During the spring migration enormous numbers of this 



Figure 17. Common white sucker, Catostcmiu^ commersonnii commersonnii, 



14 inches long. 



species are taken each year in the pound nets used in securing pike- 

 perch for spawning. Sometimes the suckers amount to as much as two 

 tons in a single night in the nets at Wolf Lake, near Bemidji, Minnesota. 

 Many of them are used for food by the local people. They are prepared 

 for use by salting, smoking, or "salmoning," and are rather highly 

 esteemed. During recent years the common white sucker has become of 

 considerable commercial value. The flesh, though bony, is firm and flaky 

 and very sweet. 



Anglers, particularly trout fishermen, accuse the suckers of destroy- 

 ing large quantities of trout spawn, and consequently they are in 

 disrepute, but actual evidence of their destroying trout eggs is lacking. 

 Suckers sometimes run up the trout streams to spawn, but they do so 

 at a season when the trout eggs have already hatched. Even though 

 some suckers should remain during the summer, they are always of 

 limited number and all of them seek deeper water in the larger streams 

 when the temperature of the water begins to drop, usually during the 

 cool nights in August, a month or more before the trout begin to spawn. 



In hatchery operations on the Upper Mississippi an enormous spring 

 run of suckers follows that of the walleyes. They spawn shortly after 

 the walleyes have finished spawning. During a spell of warm weather 

 early in May the stomachs of some 500 or 600 of these suckers were ex- 

 amined, and not more than 50 contained anv food. These suckers were 



