Sucker Supporters Say 'Junk Fish' Are Anything But

Tyler Winter was a self-described know-it-all as a kid growing up in the river bottoms of southern Minnesota. He’d often fish for carp in drainage ditches around his home, but one day he caught a mooneye, a license-plate-sized, fork-tailed fish with large eyes and fine teeth on its tongue. The mooneye is native to most rivers in the Upper Midwest, but it was brand new to know-it-all Winter.

“When that bright silver fish jumped from the muddy ditch, it ignited a curiosity in Minnesota’s native fish,” says Winter. “It was living proof that there were mysteries left even in the most mundane water.”

Winter built on that formative experience to learn more about all the native fish that were pejoratively called “rough fish” by not only fellow anglers but also state fisheries regulations. Or, as is often the case, by the lack of regulations. Rough fish in many states have no seasons or limits or restrictions on means of take. To many anglers, they’re all “carp” or “junk.”

“As I learned how to fish for ‘rough fish’ I was constantly confronted by people’s disdain for them,” notes Winter. “The fish, and by extension the waters, were completely misunderstood. The root of the problem was that people left their hunting ethics in the woods. Ethics like identify your target. Take what you need. Use what you take. Fair chase. Respect for your quarry. People who wouldn’t dream of shooting a bird they don’t recognize are perfectly willing to kill a fish they don’t recognize.”

Part of the problem is that neither anglers nor fish-and-wildlife agencies differentiate between native non-game-fish species like suckers, unwanted non-native species like common carp and damaging invasive species like Asian carp. Instead, all non-game fish are lumped into a messy, wrongheaded classification: rough fish. The result is that beneficial native fish species like smallmouth and bigmouth buffalo, mooneye and goldeye, redhorse sucker, white sucker and freshwater drum are being killed in unsustainable numbers by uninformed anglers while the habitat they require isn’t being prioritized or managed by fisheries professionals.

Those twin pressures on native fish species prompted Winter and co-founders to form a new non-profit organization, Native Fish for Tomorrow (nativefishfortomorrow.org). The group aims to educate anglers about the value of native non-game-fish species and to lobby legislatures and agencies with the goal of reforming regulations to actively manage some of these neglected natives.

It’s starting with fisheries statues in Winter’s home state of Minnesota, which he says is the state closest to “normalizing” the status of native non-game fish. Partly that’s because of the rising awareness of the ecological role that many of these fish play in water quality and in controlling populations of harmful invasive species like zebra mussels. The organization’s mission is also being amplified by a rise in the appreciation for species that don’t have high-profile fishing tournaments associated with them.

“People are changing why they fish,” observes Winter. “Some anglers are focused on field-to-table eating, something that’s not popular to do with trout. Others are just trying to maximize angling opportunity and find new challenges. Anglers travel the world to catch a 10-pound bonefish. Why not travel down the street to catch a 10-pound redhorse? This represents an almost untapped user base. If you want to eat something from a local water, why not harvest 2- to 4-pound shorthead or golden redhorse suckers? With the diversity of native non-game fish, there’s something for every angler.”

It will be lost on no readers that Winter and his crew are swimming against a strong current. After all, even the remarkable, multi-species family of suckers needs a public-relations firm to rebrand its image. And its name.

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But suckers, it turns out, are critical ecological servants, keeping water clear by scraping organic material from stream substrates, creating habitats for aquatic insects and invertebrates, and feeding the piscivorous species that anglers prefer to catch. Winter notes that the white sucker is in widespread decline across Minnesota, and is classified as imperiled in neighboring Wisconsin.

“Historically, nothing has been done for any non-game fish until they are imperiled,” he says. Once populations and habitat for native fish species slip into a terminal decline, the hammer of the federal Endangered Species Act can end most activity, including fishing for popular game species. Suckers, from the razorback sucker to the Rio Grande sucker to the June sucker, have all been considered for federal protection, largely because their populations weren’t managed for abundance when they were abundant.

“The moral of that story is that for species that are still abundant, it’s not too late to protect their ecosystem,” adds Winter. “Conservation for ‘common’ species is a radical idea, but we believe, based on the long history of unrecovered fish populations, that we should manage common species while they are common in order to stay common.”

But Winter notes many of these native species should be appreciated for their own merits. Bigmouth buffalo, for instance, can live more than 100 years. Burbot, sometimes called “poor man’s lobster,” are being reconsidered for their excellent table fare. Other native species add or amplify nutrients in waters that would be relatively barren without them.

Native Fish for Tomorrow is a relatively small and scrappy regional organization. The non-profit is starting with changing Minnesota’s perspective of native fish, helping the state agency “manage the fish like a resource instead of a problem.” The group notes, “Only after we do that can we advance habitat and fish-passage” issues in a state with more than 2,000 main-stem dams on its major rivers that impede movement of both native and non-native game fish.

Next, Winter hopes to raise public awareness of the value of native fish species that aren’t classified as game fish. He knows he has a lot of work to do, even among fellow anglers.

“We need awareness and public support to change Minnesota’s statue that currently legally defines both invasive common carp and 26 native species in one regulatory category: rough fish,” he says. “You can’t imagine how much time I have spent telling people that whatever species they show me is not a carp, not a type of carp or is not related to carp.”

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• This article was featured in the March 2024 issue of Game & Fish magazine. How to subscribe.