Fishing for suckers...

[DitchPanda]

So in the early spring after ice out I've read that suckers are often times the first fish to put on the feed bag in creeks and small rivers. Kind of been on a kick for alternative species lately so it got me wondering. Has anybody chased suckers after ice out? What areas are you looking for?

[Deleted account]

24 minutes ago, DitchPanda said:

Fishing for suckers...

Yeah, I can't believe some of the lures some folks are duped into buying...

[12poundbass]

It wasn’t right after ice out up here in Michigan, but late April early May they’d start to run in the creeks. We’d spear them at night. We’d carry lanterns, a grain sack to put the suckers in, and of course spears. 
 

One creek had a dam so we’d start at the bridge and walk up the creek towards the dam. The suckers would get to the dam, have nowhere to go, and turn around and make a mad dash to get by us! We’d unload our catch, walk back to the bridge, and do it all over again several times a night. 
 

Those were fun times as a teenager.

[Team9nine]

We get them out of small creeks and streams, or the smaller feeder tribs of large rivers. A simple split shot rig with a small hook and tipped with a little worm (leaf, angle, red worm) is what we use. Usually near or downstream of riffle areas, but when running, it might not matter much. Below low head dams might also be good if you have them. Been a while since I’ve fished them - good memories.

[DitchPanda]

You guys ever eat them? If so how are you preparing them?

3 hours ago, Deleted account said:

Yeah, I can't believe some of the lures some folks are duped into buying...

I knew somebody was gonna do this.

[roadwarrior]

You can catch and keep all you want below Bull Shoals Dam on the White River.

Most of us that fish the river would like you to CATCH & KEEP  them all.

[DitchPanda]

34 minutes ago, roadwarrior said:

You can catch and keep all you want below Bull Shoals Dam on the White River.

Most of us that fish the river would like you to CATCH & KEEP  them all.

That's a 600 mile drive for me one way. Thanks for the invite but ill pass.

[DogBone_384]

I’ve never chased them. I snagged two at different ponds while crankbaiting for smallies …

 

They pulled like freight trains.

[Kirtley Howe]

I don't go fishing for suckers, but I am a sucker for fishing.

[The Bassman]

Some of my favorite memories were from sucker fishing in early spring with my dad. They're very bony so lengthwise cuts in the meat are recommended to make them small enough to not pose a hazard. A local writer, Bill Scifres used to describe pickling them. Funny, before I started focusing on ponds creek fishing for suckers is what started my season until the smallmouth and rock bass bite got going. I sure missed a lot of good largemouth fishing.

[DitchPanda]

50 minutes ago, The Bassman said:

Some of my favorite memories were from sucker fishing in early spring with my dad. They're very bony so lengthwise cuts in the meat are recommended to make them small enough to not pose a hazard. A local writer, Bill Scifres used to describe pickling them. Funny, before I started focusing on ponds creek fishing for suckers is what started my season until the smallmouth and rock bass bite got going. I sure missed a lot of good largemouth fishing.

I actually saw a video once where Doug Stange of In Fisherman said he grinds them up in a food processor then mixes them with mashed potatoes and makes fish cakes out of them. Coats the cakes with bread or cracker crumbs and fries them. Sounds pretty dang tasty.

[Deleted account]

We have suckers, but more fallfish in a lot of our creeks, they bite all winter long as long as the water isn't hard.

[bulldog1935]

Our tailwater is a trophy redhorse sucker fishery. 

 

If you're catching redhorse, you're matching the hatch. 

 

We call them Guadalupe redfish.  Made Danny smile when we were after rainbows. 

 

[Spankey]

I never had any interest in them to eat. I won’t even try one. As a kid a few Doctors would had myself and a buddy catch carp for them had taken some large suckers as well. They would grind them as well for fish cakes. 

[Tennessee Boy]

I used to catch them all the time as a kid.  It was a lot of fun.  I think it’s been about 50 years since I last caught one.

[gim]

2 hours ago, bulldog1935 said:

Our tailwater is a trophy redhorse sucker fishery.

The presence of redhorse suckers is actually a very good sign that the water quality is in good shape.  They can't survive in polluted waters.

[12poundbass]

8 hours ago, DitchPanda said:

You guys ever eat them? If so how are you preparing them?

I’m not a big fish eater. My friends dad would get them smoked after we caught them. I know of others that would can them. 

[TnRiver46]

9 hours ago, gimruis said:

The presence of redhorse suckers is actually a very good sign that the water quality is in good shape.  They can't survive in polluted waters.

Eh, I know of some nasty urban water in a tourist town that is slap loaded with them

 

@bulldog1935, I have seen my buddy take them with a white zonker, the opposite of matching the hatch haha. He set up on a group of 12-15 and just let the fly drift thru them. They all moved and let the fly go by and repositioned. So then he does it again, same thing. All the fish were pretty scared of the fly, but my buddy was persistent. After a dozen or so drifts with all the fish dodging the fly, all of a sudden one of them just attacked it and the battle was on. For a 2-3 lb fish, these things were fighting like crazy. 

[bulldog1935]

@TnRiver46 bottom-bouncing a cats whisker for endemic bass in a wide spot on the Pedernales headwaters, I hooked a black buffalo the size of a samsonite.  It was on Tonka Queen cane and 1917 Hardy St. George...

The samsonite fish porpoised continuously for two trips into the backing before finally coming unhooked, which was a relief. 

But the 10-minute ride of a lifetime. 

 

Bottom bouncing is a special effect with special results - I've seen 5-lb bass on flagstone bottom slamming their head sideways into the bottom 4 and 5 times trying to eat whatever is making the mudballs.  

We got it on film for KT Diaries. 

The technique catches everything, big rainbows, stripers, redfish - also how you fill a limit of white bass. 

ps - here's a finesse inline spinner set up to bottom-bounce, and duplicate the effect of a cats whisker on Teeny line. 

Road Runner is another good choice for bottom-bouncing. 

[roadwarrior]

Around here the #1 targeted trash fish is skip jack which is also an excellent

catfish bait. The Sabiki Rig rules!

[DitchPanda]

11 hours ago, roadwarrior said:

Around here the #1 targeted trash fish is skip jack which is also an excellent

catfish bait. The Sabiki Rig rules!

I fish for gold eyes around here...they are very similar to skipjack. I do really well for them with a kastmaster.

[bulldog1935]

Skipjack herring, redhorse sucker, and black buffalo are all native fish, along with long-nose gar and many species that are a blast to fish and catch.

Trash fish is a colloquialism that is less than accurate, and too often promotes myth and random fish kill. 

State agencies and too often private business have made our native waters their private aquariums, introducing non-native fish that threaten native species with extinction, and gain the more accurate descriptive moniker, feral fish.  (e.g., smallmouth bass in the TX hill country, rainbow trout in the Rockies, Rio Grande cichlids in LA bayous, KY bass in nationwide reservoirs)

Only in the past decade or so have state agencies considered the long-term effects of stocking non-native fish.  In too many instances, damage was already done by over-zealous stocking decades before. 

[flyfisher]

Here in VA they just recognized the fallfish or what I called a sucker as a game fish with a state record and a local guy went after them and caught the state and I think tied the existing world record.

 

https://www.outdoorlife.com/fishing/virginia-angler-catches-world-record-fallfish-in-two-casts/

 

[TnRiver46]

55 minutes ago, bulldog1935 said:

 

State agencies and too often private business have made our native waters their private aquariums, introducing non-native fish that threaten native species with extinction, 

And in the next breath, ask for donations to fight the fight against exotic species 

[bulldog1935]

@TnRiver46 GRTU donates $2500 annually to TPWD for endemic Guadalupe Bass Restoration initiative (hatchery).  Outside the hatcheries, only two A-strains remain in the wild, one creek headwater isolated by a waterfall, the second by aquifer recharge (the creek disappears into the ground). 

The very fish endangered by genetic pollution from smallmouth bass stocked by TPWD in the '70s and '80s.  The Blanco River strain is extinct. 

smallie hybrid on the left, the big hen, from the same plunge pool, appears to be all-Guad.