| Yeah I've done this a little, but certainly not to the extent that you witnessed (yet). The good thing about artificially fertilizing and hatching fish is that many, many times more make it to the early developmental stages due to near 100% fertilization, and the potential for egg protection. It's so effective, in fact, that this is exactly how I plan on feeding the musky fingerlings I hope to be raising in a few years. Suckers, carp and goldfish can provide an endless supply of food for growing predators, and that sure beats dumping a paycheck into pricy fatheads. I would be interested in hearing where the baitshop owners rear the growing suckers...that many eggs would require either acres of productive shallow water, or a good deal of supplemental feeding.
I certainly understand your concern for the forage population in that area, but in all honesty, it would probably take serious efforts during the whole spawning period to even dent the sucker population in an average body of water (especially since they spawn into the wee hours during peak run). If you are talking smallish creeks connecting to inland bodies of water, then it would be nice to see them release a few percent of the little guys back - which would more than replace what they took given the miniscule survival rates in the wild.
I remember reading about the DNR wanting to remove a good chunk the roughfish population in an inland lake, and in their netting they removed 10 tons of suckers for 3 years straight and never noticed a detectable difference in the boomshocking studies. They ended up abandoning the plan stating that it was impossible, but that lake might be a bit different from where you are speaking because it was connected to Lake Superior, and had basically an endless supply of suckers. Anyway, it's good to hear you show concern over that ecosystem, and I would sure like see the outfits those folks have to rear that many fish...maybe I'll check with some local baitshops to see if this is practiced around here at all. |
