michigan 's little known fishes and fish facts

[lonehunter]

i thought it was an eel , but it turned out to be a sea lamprey .

call me stupid , but i didn't know we had a freshwater lamprey native to michigan waters .

the michigan lamprey is brown in color and it's dorsal fin runs all the way to it's tail . it is not a harmful species of fish . the adapted sea lamprey is dark green in color and it's dorsal fin is seperate from it's tail fin .

the lamprey will not feed off a mammal , they don't like the taste of our blood .

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we also have a minnow that looks like it's part chub , part perch , and part walleye . (chub head and size , walleye body style , perch markings )

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chub's can grow up to be as large as a full grown sucker 4 to 5 pounds !

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ever seen a sculpin ? it looks like a saltwater fish , native to our waters .
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[davetclown]

guess what there good buddie, if you through it back you threw back a non native speceice in michigan waters.

the lamphre came up in to michigan waters when the suez cannal was opened.

the state spends millions every year to fight the lamphree, they set out traps. they do genetic experiments on them.

lamphree are a parisite that latch on to the side of a fish around the bellie area and digest what the fish brings in till the fish dies or is knocked off by anouter fish or bumping in to a rock.
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[lonehunter]

yea the brown ones , native , thats what the d.n.r. bioligst told me . they were tagging and releasing female sea lamprey (green ones ), and saving the males for x-ray sterilisation for later release .

the brown lamprey he said were native freshwater lamprey , they feed of of catfish . the d.n.r. said the brown lamprey keep the cats out of the trout waters . they dont feed off the trout ( bad taste to them )and thats why there are so few of fresh water lamprey he said .

maybe he ment they were a welcome nonenvasive species . benificial to our waters .

any way , there ugly creatures , look like a cross bred sucker and eel , yuch !
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[davetclown]

I have caught a couple them, one on a worm the other was hooked to the side of a salmon.

the ones they are taging and releasing are geneticly enhansed, they are suspost to be some what steril in that they breed but their ability to reproduce in great numbers is susposedly dramiticly reduced. that is the money I was talking about them spending.

we have an endepth report on this some where on the concervation board. last year they stoped using traps to capture them. they beleive that this method of steril parisite will be far more cost effective in reducing their numbers.

at one time we had a major problem with lamphre plageing the salmon population. I remember the news reels from back in the 60's
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[lonehunter]

lamprey trap



today's catch , yuck !



this male sea lamprey has this " split " between the fins ( female are a greyish color ) , the chestnut or brook lamprey native to our streams have a full fin . the sea lamprey grow to be rather large while the chestnut lamprey are rather small .
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