Sucker Fishing!
 

Sucker Patties! I wasn't sure where to put this but I figured you folks would be the most responsive.
As soon as ice is out in the North, the first river fish to get active is the lowly sucker. Now these less than pretty fish get soft and not too tasty in summer when the water warms up, but in the spring they are fantastic!

I was just at a major tributary to the Muskegon river and there were lots of folks there in the sunshine catching suckers.
Heck I got 11 of them in around 1 hour, which is good because my dog is so fricken full of himself today I can't take him anywhere.
You keep the mid size ones that are around 4 pounds.

There isn't much meat on a sucker, just a great boneless strip along the backbone, think backstraps on a deer.

Many folks smoke or can them, my neck of the woods will be smelling like apple and cherry smoke for a couple weeks.

What we do is make sucker patties. We grind the fillets with mashed potatos, fresh chives and some egg white to keep them together and fry them firm in butter.
Fishburgers with friends and neighbors all day long today! :ARMS1: :36_3_16:

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You eat em? :thumpdown I catch em and freeze em. Then when the open water fishing season starts, I use em for bait and catch some real fish.:biggrin:

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Only in the cold water spring. If I lived where you do I woulden't eat anything out of the freaking toilet you have turned your fresh water into either.

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http://www.theleeworld.com/Squawfish...suckerfish.jpg

you caught 11 of these guys ?

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Yep! Pretty ain't they? LMAO That beauty in the pic is a white sucker, we have those here mainly with the occasional redhorse and black sucker thrown in.
They all pretty much look the same.

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We used to spear fish for them. Another feast in the spring was the smelt run on the great lakes. Not too many in North Georgia though.

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Hardly any smelt anymore, not sure what happened to them.

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Really cold water makes quite a difference. I've never eaten a sucker before, but I've heard people that do. If you can get a channel cat to bite now, they are much better eating than in summer.

We have a lot of redhorse around here.

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Boy, that is a shame. I am sorry to hear that.

I used to freeze to death hanging a net off the side of the Oakville pier. And I will never forget having "British" fish & chips on the way home made of Lake Ontario whitefish. I think they are long gone due to the lampreys that got into the Great Lakes when the seaway was built.

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The Smelt were planted into the lakes to begin with, as feeder fish. when Lake trout numbers collapsed due to Lamprey, the smelt numbers exploded in the 60s-80s. after the Lampreys were put under control and the trout recovered,plus addtional plants of Salmon and Steelhead (Very large rainbow trout) and walleye, they just arent in the huge numbers anymore.

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nope,Whitefish numbers are fine! I live on the Lake Huron shore, around Nov. Whitefish numbers are in the millions along the coasts, I catch roughly 100 lbs worth of filets every year for the freezer.

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Good news that the trout & salmon are back! I remember when the streams were wall to wall smelt when the run was on. My father had a newspaper clipping that was a reprint of one from the 1800's talking about catching salmon in the Don River (Toronto). That was hard to believe when I was a kid.

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Did the lampreys ever get past Niagara? I guess they must have with the various locks and canals. I am glad to hear the whitefish are back too.

I wonder if I am too old to move back north?

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Ach! Thanks brother Gypsy! I knew that smelt numbers drop when gamefish numbers are up but I brainfarted it at the moment.:thumb.aspx:
My bud Buzzy called and said he's firing up the turkey fryer to dunk sucker patties in peanut oil, so a bunch of us are going over there, apparently everybody is fishing today!
Fish Burgers!!!
:applause_ :ok: :biggrin: bancha

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As a young kid the first fish i ever caught were suckers. I was so proud of myself I brought them home for my family to eat. My dad knowing better used them as garden fertilizer. They have pretty mushy flesh, but then again I caught them in the summer.

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Was it really necessary to respond by way of a personal attack against me?

I personally have done nothing to turn "MY" water into anything. Where I live, there are many small lakes and streams that are still pristine. In fact, I live within 600 yards of a natural glen that has a naturally occuring Artesian spring that feeds a wonderful stream that you can drink from without treating the water.

As for the suckers I catch for bait, I catch them in the upper peninsula of Michigan. And that is where I do the bulk of my fishing as well. I own property bordering on the national forest just outside of Bruce Crossing Michigan.

And as for the Daleyland location......I do not live in Chicago. On this forum, truth can hurt you.

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they are in real heavy on this side too Irons, Walleye numbers are HUGE this year as well!

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uummm,<drool>, Whitefish! Food of the gods. There is a place in Copper Harbor (UP) that has an excellent fish platter. Whitefish, Lake Trout and Salmon, all fresh.

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That would have to be the Harbor Haus. It is quite a place, with nice views of the lake, and like you said, great fish platter.

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I stand corrected.:thumb.aspx:

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I have towed my boat over to the big Saginaw bay a couple of times and the Walleye fishing is incredible. Those bastards get so big so fast thier heads are little and thier bodies bulging.
It's one of those things you have to see to believe.:ok:
The main thing that freaks me out boating on that side of the state is when you see an incoming problem, it is between your sorry ass and the shore!
We got in some unkind weather out of the charity islands one time, saw it coming and booked for port, diden't make it.
Cold, wet and bilge pump running. Lund boats are worth the $$$.
Going out of Manistee when you see a big problem it is generally coming from the west, and you have at least a chance of beating it to shore.
1

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When we were kids in grade school, we would go on the reserves with Indian friends and snare suckers running up the creeks. Two guys would get volenteered to go downstream about 200 yards and get in the creek. They would walk upstream while we were waiting on a bailey bridge with a 20 foot poplar pole with a snare on the end. Once the fish were driven upstream and passed under the bridge, we would set the snare around the tail as they were cruising through and give a good tug to yank them out. Good fun in the spring sunshine when your 10 years old.:bear_w00t:

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Sounds awesome, Bully!

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Ya, it was a lot of fun. We did that till we were about 12. Then we just shot them with a .30-06 lol.

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Way back when we called walleye pickerel in Northern Ontario. They may still. I was always confused because in the magazines, a pickerel was a pike looking fish. Years later after, eating a large number of shore lunches and dinners, I heard about walleye (pickerel) cheeks. IIUC, this is a fleshy area on each side of the head that people would fry in butter. They say they are a good as scallops.

I haven't seen a walleye in 40 years and missd the opportunity to fry some cheeks

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Yes, pickeral cheeks are da bomb.

Something else we have been doing lately is salvaging the remains of the filleting process. 30 years ago, we never used to fillet fish. They were usually fried whole. Now that we fillet most of our fish, we have gotten to saving the slab of backbone left after filleting. We cut off the head and tail, and clean up the piece thats left, and fry that up as well. There is still a lot of meat to be had. Actually, if I fillet up some bass, I feed the wife and kids the fillets, and there is proportionally enough with the backs that I have well enough to eat off them. I wouldn't serve it to company, but why waste all that good meat?

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IIRC the black suckers have the least amount of Y bones. We'd fry up the whole fish, and take our time eating and picking bones. Fry up the eggs so that you could take the edge off your hunger first.

Although I have not tried it yet, I have heard that if you can the sucker fillets the bones will get soft and you can eat them. We tried canning bluegill and the bones were still crunchy. Course they weren't the little Y bones either.

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Redhorse is definately a good fish fry eat!
Fillet and make sure to get rid of the red meat, season or bread as you
wish!
Damn now I'm hungry.....................:wavey:

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Here is a dated video of one of our local towns that celebrates SUCKER DAY every spring, Every little town around here has a themed holiday including Erntfest which is a beer and braut eating and drinking day :beer:


video is dated ...but it claims we started this sucker thing

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Yes, when you can suckers the bones go soft. That's how my mother used to preserve them. It was easier this way because we would get 20 just putting the dip net in the run. It is also just easier to can them when you get that many in a short outing. Good clean cold water so nice firm fresh. They still run that way back home.
:beer:

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Never ate a sucker but I sure as hell like using em as a live decoy for spearing.

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Only on GIM could someone come up with that! Thanks! Reminds me to take a return trip to Copper Harbor.

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For what it's worth, suckers are not a "lowly" fish even though you may have that opinion because they are not a "pretty" fish and are a "non-game" or "rough" fish.

The Catostomidae (Sucker) family is actually very diverse from an evolution perspective and warrants our respect both biologically and culturally. The Native Americans called the full moon of Februaray the "Sucker Moon," knowing that these fish were about to make their spawning run and because they were at the end of winter and in need of protein. Harvest them in moderation, they are one of the good guys.

Conversely, Common Carp/Asian Carp/Smelt/Zebra Mussels etc. have destroyed our aquatic natural resources in addition to our own hubris and pollution. Better yet, harvest carp and put them in a kiddie pool or similar for a couple days and they eat well. Don't even get me started on the absolute nonsense of stocking Pacific Salmon in the Great lakes.

My 2 cents.

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When you can suckers add a couple tablespoons of vinegar to a pint, to disolve the Y bones.