SUCKER 



vests all of the minnows from a 

 pond the first day he seines, large 

 numbers of the suckers will be small 

 and will have to be sold as crappie 

 bait. If the dealer removes only 

 the pike-bait size each time and al- 

 lows the small fish to stay in the 

 pond and grow, he will be able to 

 sell the entire production as pike 

 bait. The number of times a pond 

 can be cropped will depend on the 

 cost of seining and the value of pike 

 bait versus crappie bait. 



Holding suckers over winter 



In the Northern States, where 3 

 feet of snow and 20° -below-zero 

 weather are common, propagation 



ponds are not practical for over- 

 wintering suckers. The fish must 

 be seined or trapped and moved to 

 holding ponds supplied with run- 

 ning w^ater (fig. 39). River- w^ater 

 ponds are preferable to those fed 

 Avith spring water, because the river 

 water supplies some natural food 

 and the minnows are in better condi- 

 tion in the spring. In either type 

 of pond, the fish must be fed arti- 

 ficial food, but less food is needed in 

 river-water ponds than in spring- 

 fed ponds. Suckers feed readily 

 on moist meat scrap or fish-meal 

 mash thickened with middlings and 

 formed into fair-sized balls. The 

 balls are dropped to the bottom of 



Figure 39. — A winter holding pond supplied with river water. ( Photograph courtesy 

 of the Minnesota Department of Conservation.) 



367913 0—56- 



77 



