Redhorse

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MichaelGA
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Re: Redhorse

Post by MichaelGA »

Thanks for the information guys.

- Smitty I've seen that pool but not tried it as I hadn't figured out if the land is private or not... I really dislike people wandering through mine so I tend to be overly cautious about others.

This summer should be lots of fun - missed half of last year as I had to wait 6 months before getting my Ontario License.

Never seen a catfish / sucker so I'm surely going to try and catch a few.
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MichaelGA
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Re: Redhorse

Post by MichaelGA »

Anyone see any shore-fishing areas that one might try now that the water seems to be going down?
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StarTzar
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Re: Redhorse

Post by StarTzar »

Here is my contribution to this thread. It's a useless "funny take"
But then again it could be the beverage of choice as an accompaniment to Fried Sucking Redfin Sucker.

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RJ
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Re: Redhorse

Post by RJ »

A few of the creeks out my way used to get some great runs. I grew up chasing em in the creek. No idea if they still do or not but man they were fun.

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smitty55
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Re: Redhorse

Post by smitty55 »

RJ wrote:A few of the creeks out my way used to get some great runs. I grew up chasing em in the creek. No idea if they still do or not but man they were fun.RJ
Tks RJ. Would that be that creek off the Jock that crosses Dwyer Hill and Purdy roads?

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Re: Redhorse

Post by RJ »

That's one yup as well as the one that crosses the Munster Sd Rd on other side of Franktown Rd.

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Re: Redhorse

Post by EagleEyesFlash »

The upper Tay is a tough fish probably cause of the ultra clear water and the explosion of the Osprey population, been skunked
on the Tay too often, probably better off to fish right in Perth, but it fells a bit conspicuous there. :D
Creeks are even skinny for a kayak, here's a silver from the Carp a few years ago.

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Troutskiii
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Re: Redhorse

Post by Troutskiii »

I'm not far from RJ, that creek he mentioned the top end runs threw my property. They have been seen in there before on one or two occasions :lol:
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smitty55
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Re: Redhorse

Post by smitty55 »

Troutskiii wrote:I'm not far from RJ, that creek he mentioned the top end runs threw my property. They have been seen in there before on one or two occasions :lol:
That's great guys. So I guess what I''ll have to figure out is when is the best time to try and catch them by angling. I figure it's like other spring runs, when the apple trees are blossoming the suckers are in the current areas actually spawning and then are suceptable to being netted or speared. But you can only spear or net white sucker. So I'm figuring I'll look for ponds below spawning runs where the reds might be staging. It doesn't seem like they are fished for very much on purpose, except for some fly fishermen. So I'll just be like a kid again and toss out a small hook and a worm, so to speak. Debating using 2 or 3 short droppers or even a combo of that and a drop shot hook or two. Probably will try a simple split shot rig with a small Kahle hook for finesse as well. I hear that suckers are very finicky and quick to spit anything foreign. Maybe even get wifey a license and bring my grandson along too. Many of these roadside areas could be private too, not that I can see anyone one having a problem with someone shore fishing along a river or creek by a bridge, but you never know. As a kid I wouldn't have given it a second thought lol.

To the lowly sucker I offer this fun little short story I found. I hope you enjoy it... Cheers

The Humble White Sucker

"My first meeting with the humble white sucker came under the railroad bridge spanning Queset Brook in the town of Easton. As a young boy my dad would take me there to watch the suckers spawn in the shallow riffles below the bridge.

When I first saw the suckers congregating in the narrow stream, I thought we had discovered a fisherman’s Eden. Here were fifty fish, big and broad shouldered, milling about at my feet. I began jumping up and down with excitement, pulling at dads sleeve, we must hurry back to the truck for our fishing poles I exclaimed. Dad chuckled as he knelt down next to me. He went on to explain that suckers would not bite because of their small sucker like mouths. They use these tiny mouths for feeding on algae and other tiny foods much like the tropical catfish we had in our aquarium. He explained that the reason they were now here was to spawn in the fast-moving shallow water. They would remain here for a week or two when they would disappear as mysteriously as they had arrived.

Naturally at the seasoned age of five I was quite certain that I knew far more about the fine art of angling than dad, who after all had only been practicing it for thirty odd years. As I began to plead my case for the retrieval of the fishing poles, he gave me one of his, I know I am not going too win this one kind of looks and turned to the truck for the fishing gear.

When he returned, I eagerly grabbed my pole and shot a cast among the swarming fish. Several casts later, I looked back at dad who was sitting behind me whistling an annoying old Roger Miller tune. He stopped whistling for a moment and with a smirk asked "how many you catch." "None," I replied in frustration, reaching down to my fishing box for a different lure which was sure to prove him wrong.

After twenty minutes of constant casting and lure changing, dad stopped whistling again and with a sympathetic smirk said "guess they’re just not biting today huh."

He then got up with his pole and flopped an old red and white daredevil spoon into the stream and let it settle to the bottom. When the first sucker passed over it, he pulled hooking the fish in the side, handing me the rod he said "hold on tight now." The fish raced down and across the stream, pulling the Dacron line from the old Phlueger Supreme casting reel. Other fish scattered as my fish frantically struggled to shake the hook. When the fight was over, we hauled him up and dad carefully unhooked him. As we released him back into the riffles dad said, "that’s the only way to catch them, but it’s probably best to leave them alone and just watch them while they’re spawning, don’t ya think."

The bridge over Queset would become one of my favorite childhood haunts, it was a short walk from my cousin’s house, from where I could sneak away to visit my new found friends, the white suckers. I could easily spend hours laying across the tracks looking down through the railroad ties into my own private aquarium. Unfortunately these visits were usually quite short lived, and lasted only as long as it took my mother to track me down. After my capture I would find myself unmercifully banished from the stream to serve a lengthy internment in my bedroom as punishment for my skulking ways.

One afternoon while sitting at the bridge watching the suckers, two men arrived with fishing poles in hand. They worked at the Steadfast Rubber Plant that was a short distance up the railroad tracks from the stream. Apparently the day before another plant worker had seen the fish here while having his lunch and had told these two would be anglers about my sucker friends.

They looked down into the stream at the fish debating what species they were, one said bass the other said trout I said suckers. Both looked at me curiously while they readied their tackle to begin fishing. Ignoring me now, they began casting feverishly into the groups of uninterested fish. Why the hell don’t, they bite one man said of the other, the other shrugged and replied "don’t know never saw trout or bass act like this before" as he continued casting at the fish.

They’re sucker fish they don’t bite, you have to snag them I said, (advice that I would soon regret giving). Ya now something, I think the kids right, they are suckers one of the men replied, damn filthy suckers said the other. The two men then began snagging the suckers one after another and tossing them up onto the black dusty grit of the rail bed. I asked the men if they were taking the fish home to eat, to which they replied no. So why are you killing them, I pried.

Sitting to take a break one of the men explained to me that the suckers were just a trash fish. As he tossed his empty lunch bag and nip bottle into the stream, his co-worker added that they were a filthy fish that lived in filthy places where no other fishes could be found. He went on to tell me about a filthy polluted stream near his home where suckers lived, he said it was surprising to find them in a clean stream like mine.

At the sound of the plants whistle the two men tossed the rest of their trash into the stream and headed back down the tracks to the plant. After they left, I began gathering up my sucker friends and bringing them back down to the stream. One by one I washed the black coal dust off them and set them back in the riffles. With a splash of the tail and a twist each slowly swam off, joining the rest to resume their spawning dance in the riffles of Queset.

From the human perspective the white sucker is very much the Quasimodo of river fishes. Not particularly pretty to look at and of little value to anglers because they seldom give chase to lure or bait. Even the fish’s common name. White Sucker relegates it to the ranks of the unknown and unwanted. If the white sucker had been blessed with the colors of a rainbow trout and the eating habits of a pickerel, it would undoubtedly be one of our most celebrated fresh water game fish. Because like Quasimodo who appears sluggish and clumsy, the suckers, when intoxicated by spring love, display a power, tenacity and endurance that would put many of our celebrated "gamefish" to shame.

At this point in my sucker dissertation, I know some will be thinking, "what the ^%$&* is this chowda head talking about" and I would have probably thought much the same if my brother and I had not witnessed the following scene below Fort Halifax Dam on the Sebasticook River.

Here in the spring of last year we watched the suckers swim up the ledges below the dam and make charge after charge into the foaming spring flood water cascading over the dam. It was a hopeless endeavor, the dam being fifteen feet high and impassable to any fish excluding perhaps our good friend the sea lamprey. But the suckers were unaware of this, one after another and in groups of two’s and three’s they charged into the white water. At first stalling when striking the wall of water, then seemingly by force of sheer will power they would put forth another burst of energy which would thrust them vertically up into the falls. Here they would stall again, swimming furiously yet making no headway. Finally the force of the water drained their energy and sent them somersaulting down slamming against the concrete apron of the dam. It was an experience that gave me a whole different perception of the humble white sucker.

The sucker, strangely enough also suffers from the fact that it has been blessed with the ability and adaptability to survive in some of our foulest waterways. Much like the two fellows in my childhood encounter, many people disdain the sucker for being a filthy trash fish. They seem oblivious to the fact that it was we who created the filth, the sucker just happens to be one of the few creatures tough enough to survive in it. Like the lamprey, brook trout and our other indigenous fishes, the melt water of the glaciers was the suckers original home and habitat. To think suckers or any other species for that matter are filthy because they can survive or thrive in the filth that we create seems very strange, but quite common.

If your still with me, we must now ask, what about the white sucker from our Rivers’ ecosystem’s perspective, what does it contribute to the wonderful web of life that we know as our Great River? I would offer that the white sucker is to our Great Rivers ecosystem what the wildebeest is to the African Plains ecosystem. The white sucker is to our Great Rivers ecosystem what the lemming is to the Arctic Tundras ecosystem. Simply put the sucker is food. Most riverine predators from water scorpions to bald eagles eat white suckers.

White suckers are an incredibly productive fish that spawn in large mainstem rivers and in the tiny trickles that drain into them. In brooks like Queset or West Meadow the adults seem to appear from nowhere in the early spring. They swarm up out of the swamps to flash their spawning colors in the shallow riffles of the streams and rivers. Their bulky bodies seem out of place in the narrow, shallow waters of the smaller tributaries.

When not in the physical act of spawning the suckers stay beneath over hanging branches and under bridges. This may be an inherited trait, from times past when bald eagles and ospreys were abundant in these locales. The unwary sucker in open water would have been an easy target and an important early spring food source for these feathered marauders.

Several weeks after spawning the sucker fry emerge from the gravel. When they are about a half, an inch long they can be found in small schools under over hanging brush and in tiny back eddies. The careful observer will be amazed by how many of these juvenile suckers can be found in a short stretch of water. Often the kingfisher swooping down from an overhanging branch will be plucking these tiny fish from the stream.

To make a long story short, (ha, ha) the white sucker is a little appreciated but vital cog in the ever evolving wheel that is our Great River. This is my ode to the Humble White Sucker, my dear childhood friend, and faithful traveling companion throughout the rivers of the City of Brockton and beyond."
Smitty

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MichaelGA
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Re: Redhorse

Post by MichaelGA »

Nice story and thanks for the info.
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Troutskiii
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Re: Redhorse

Post by Troutskiii »

Water is startin to lower at my end in the creek it was higher a few weeks back then I'd ever seen it. If you had a dinghy or small Jon boat or canoe you could easily float the creek,put in at one of the bridges. Couple of beaver huts to get around but I canoe the creek every summer. You would be suprised at what you can catch in there, I sure was.
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Re: Redhorse

Post by almontefisher »

Are river redhorse not on the list of non catchable species?? I remember a few years ago fishing off a bridge near Almonte and catching them to later be told you can not catch them.

As for where Smitty I know a great spot for them just outside of town. Let me know if you want a PM on the location

I just did a google search and here is a link if it works.

http://www.mnr.gov.on.ca/en/Business/Sp ... RS_EN.html

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Re: Redhorse

Post by smitty55 »

Welcome back to the site Peter. I guess a switch got flipped when I ran into you the other day at ctc.
As for the redhorse, there are many different ones. I believe the whole reason there is a sanctuary from Almonte to Pakenham in the spring is to protect the sucker run in that stretch.

As for a spot close to town, that sounds great. Thanks in advance. Cheers
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Re: Redhorse

Post by almontefisher »

smitty55 wrote:Welcome back to the site Peter. I guess a switch got flipped when I ran into you the other day at ctc.
As for the redhorse, there are many different ones. I believe the whole reason there is a sanctuary from Almonte to Pakenham in the spring is to protect the sucker run in that stretch.

As for a spot close to town, that sounds great. Thanks in advance. Cheers

You are right Smitty..after running into you and avoiding doing lawn work I thought what the heck lets get back to the board, stir up some stuff and see what happens...lol. Of course I don't stir the pot so I just was hoping to read the first trout opener report from tippy..which was well worth the wait!

Cheers
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It's much more important.

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Re: Redhorse

Post by EagleEyesFlash »

almontefisher wrote:Are river redhorse not on the list of non catchable species?? I remember a few years ago fishing off a bridge near Almonte and catching them to later be told you can not catch them.


Cheers
Curious as to who told you that.
You can still fish for redhorse in Ontario and yes River redhorse are a "species at risk ".
It's tricky to tell the difference between the "redfin suckers" ; Shorthead, Greater and River, all 3 are probably in the Mississippi.
That " Moxostoma " link in this thread tells you what to look for to tell the difference, and I'ld release River ones for conservation.
In Quebec there's zones where all redhorse must be released as they are protecting the endangered Copper redhorse, which isn't
known to habitat in Ontario.

Good luck guys, prime time is coming soon, and if you find them a PM would be appreciated too.

Cheers,
Brent
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