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Show Nobody Ever Gives the Utah Sucker An Even Break The Utah sucker, at one time a very important food fish for Utahns, has lost its popularity as table fare with the abundance of trout and other favored species. Many of the first settlers to the area ate them, although they are bony and the taste is reported as fair. It is probably the fish you find dried out and fly-covered more than any other on the shorelines of reservoirs and rivers because nobody gives a Utah sucker an even break. It is native to the basin of old Lake Bonneville in Utah, Idaho, Wyoming and Nevada. Neva-da. It formerly existed in Utah Lake by the millions but the 1934 drought took its toll on the population, nearly eradicating it. The sucker has never approached its former abundance. There was a large population popula-tion of sucker in the Strawberry Reservoir prior to the fish eradication program there in 1961. Thompson Catostomus ardens Jordan and Gilbert said the DWR hauled out tons and tons of suckers after the treatment. Although a vast amount of c.uckers were elminated in . that treatment, they are now back in large quantities causing problems to the trout fishery in Strawberry Reservoir. Reser-voir. Trout and suckers compete for food and space. They , both feed on the same aquatic insects but the suckers feed on them while they are larvae on the bottom and the trout eat them in the pupa stage, as the insects surface and in the adult stage when they land to drop their eggs into the water. The more consumptin of the insects in the larvae stage, means fewer reach the pupa stage. "The biggest competition , between trout and suckers is for space," Thompson said. "We're not positive, but it's our feeling that they don't tolerate each other. The rainbow won't stay in the . rsrt same area as suckers and chub. If they move in, the rainbow move out." Thompson said the trout would welcome a population of mountain suckers (panto-steus (panto-steus platyrhynchus) because be-cause these suckers only reach six inches in length and provide a good forage for them. The most identifiable part of the sucker is its rolled, oval lips that come just below its flat nose. It has 11-13 dorsal fin rays and has rather large scales, between 60-70 in the lateral line. Its back is a dark copper brown that bleeds into a shinier brown as it moves down the side then to a snow white belly. The fins are hard and breeding males sometime sport a rosy lateral stripe. Utah suckers can adapt to nearly any condition for survival. It readily lives in lakes, rivers ot streams in very cold to warm (above 80 F.) water, whether a rapid or non-existent current. The water can be silty to clear with a bottom of soft mud to clay, gravel and stones. It is known as a bottom dweller and may live in water more than 100 feet deep. The spawning, which occurs oc-curs in the spring, requires two males and one female. Both males, one on each side, will pull parallel to the female and as they make contact, all three fish will quiver, spread their fins and shed the eggs and milt. The males raise such a fuss that the sand and gravel are stirred up by their movement, move-ment, which lights on top of the eggs, leaving them partially buried. ,The Utah sucker has reached 25.5 inches and can weigh over five pounds, although weights exceeding two pounds are uncommon except in lakes. It usually feeds on bottom organisms-animal and plant-at plant-at all depths throughout the year, and also feeds on plankton. |