invasive species

Other than common carp, zebra mussels, and a stray large goldfish (koi?) that’s the extent of my known catches. They’ve all been in Pool 4 and 5. I don’t consider non-native stocked fish to be invasive if they exist without issues.

To me, I consider something to be invasive and warranting removal when it is likely to outcompete native species or adversely impact them. If something like a turkey, pheasant, trout, walleye is planted somewhere where it isn’t native, they are not likely to harm anything. It’s also interesting to note that the “boom” of some invasive species is what brings all the “bad.” On Pool 4 there are substantially fewer Zebra mussels than there were 10-15 years ago. Their maintained population doesn’t seem to have a ton of negative impacts on species, rather just being a nuisance. Common carp are hard on bottom vegetation and spawning grounds for some species, and I’ll gladly fertilize my garden with one if given a convenient opportunity. I’ve had a few guys who bowfish when the river floods contact me about disposal. I’ve allowed some to spread them in a couple of our fields. It’s crazy how quickly eagles were all over them.

Don’t shoot me for this unpopular take, but I think there are some lakes in the Upper Midwest that could benefit from Zebra Mussels. No, I’m not talking about the walleye factory lakes of the North where water clarity can work against native fish (ie Mille Lacs). I’m talking about some of the hyper eutrophic lakes that are relatively shallow, neon green during the summer with bad algae blooms, and overloaded with nutrients. There are many that fit this bill in Mankato area, in West Central WI, and so on. Asking the homeowners not to fertilize their lawn and farmers to not stack s*** on their fields could help too.

Most is all a matter of perception

Bearcat89 wrote:

Most is all a matter of perception

Exactly. There aren’t good ecosystems or bad ecosystems. It’s individuals that assign value. Eurasian Milfoil in Lake Minnetonka is terrible if you’re a jet skier. But, if you like catching 3-5lb bass, you love it.

Just in case anyone is wondering what the MN DNR considers an invasive species. From https://www.dnr.state.mn.us/invasives/index.html “Invasive species are species that are not native to Minnesota and cause economic or environmental harm or harm to human health.”

Stocked walleyes, muskies, pheasants… are not invasive species.

Thanks for clarifying that Blackbay!

Carp are definitely an invasive species and pheasants are not.

Invasive species are determined by politicians bought and paid for by lakeshore associations!

milfoil not good for jet skis and gets caught in the filter pumping water to the heavily fertilized Minnetonka yard

zebra mussels also clog the yard pumps and create (sharp pokies) on swimmers feet

carp- are ugly! we can all agree on that

If you could ask Sitting Bull. He would say most of us are invasive species. And without us, and our need for foreign goods. Most of the rest wouldn’t be here either.

went fishing yesterday and i caught 2 crayfish. one regular crayfish and one invasive rusty crayfish. In the photos, you can see the rusty crayfish has much larger claws to keep it from being eaten by fish.

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Asian Carp are an invasive species, if they make it into the Great Lakes, they’ll soon be the only species.

denali wrote:

Asian Carp are an invasive species, if they make it into the Great Lakes, they’ll soon be the only species.

Bring back the sea lampreys! On second thought, they’re invasive too.

denali wrote:

if they make it into the Great Lakes, they’ll soon be the only species.

phishingruven wrote:

went fishing yesterday and i caught 2 crayfish. one regular crayfish and one invasive rusty crayfish. In the photos, you can see the rusty crayfish has much larger claws to keep it from being eaten by fish.

Just so you are aware, rusty crayfish are eaten by bass, pike, walleye, and when small sunfish… they are not passed up as a meal. I’m unsure of where you figured that out. Go chuck one out under a bobber in the summer and it’ll become your favorite bass bait.

no, they are not eaten regularly. i am very aware. small sunfish are definitely not eating rustys. not even crappies could fit that into their mouth. they are passed over at a very high rate in favor of the smaller clawed, regular crayfish. When on the bottom of the lake the large claws deter the fish from getting the rusty into its mouth. you do understand that suspending a crayfish off the bottom on a hook takes away it’s defenses, right? It’s not a good comparison to a crayfish on the bottom of the lake being able to utilize it’s movement and claws. while fishing in that spot, there have been numerous rustys on the bottom and every single walleye that has swam through did not even pay them any mind. and those mud bugs were moving all over. very active.

again, agree to disagree.

phishingruven wrote:

no, they are not eaten regularly. i am very aware. small sunfish are definitely not eating rustys. not even crappies could fit that into their mouth. they are passed over at a very high rate in favor of the smaller clawed, regular crayfish. When on the bottom of the lake the large claws deter the fish from getting the rusty into its mouth. you do understand that suspending a crayfish off the bottom on a hook takes away it’s defenses, right? It’s not a good comparison to a crayfish on the bottom of the lake being able to utilize it’s movement and claws. while fishing in that spot, there have been numerous rustys on the bottom and every single <em class=”ido-tag-em”>walleye that has swam through did not even pay them any mind. and those mud bugs were moving all over. very active.

again, agree to disagree.

I wasn’t talking a sunfish eating a full sized rusty. I’m talking when they are smaller. But yes they are preyed by all varieties of fish. And other animals such as muskrat, coons, foxes, water snakes and so on.

I’m confused on, in your mind the rusty is untouchable? So all the walleyes I catch in vermillion are in fact not full of them and the dnr is incorrect on what preys on them ?

I can’t imagine a crayfish, whether its a native or a rusty, is a common prey item for a sunfish. They have very small mouths. Unless the crayfish is like the size of a dime or smaller, then maybe.

Smallmouth bass would gobble up a rusty in seconds, as their preferred prey on inland waters is a crayfish. Would bigger claws deter them? Perhaps some. I don’t think enough to stop it from trying and my money is on the smallmouth, not the rusty. Seems like almost every time I catch a smallmouth, they start puking up crayfish parts.

I read the sun fish as a prey right from the mn dnr. That’s why I said it. Along with a large list of others that eat both crayfish and rusty.
So for sunfish I’m going to guess they eat small crayfish but I don’t know.

With that thinking I’m going to guess he doesn’t think anything eats bull heads because the spines?

i’d really like to see some pictures of the crayfish parts being puked up or in the bellies of caught fish. It also seems that some are glossing over the damage that the rustys do to the aquatic plants.

love the personal attacks. keep em coming bearcat.

phishingruven wrote:

i’d really like to see some pictures of the crayfish parts being puked up or in the bellies of caught fish. It also seems that some are glossing over the damage that the rustys do to the aquatic plants.

Rusty crayfish are an invasive species and they certainly cause damage to aquatic plant life. I don’t think anyone is denying that.

Stomach content studies have proven that smallmouth bass eat crayfish and in some bodies of water, up to 80% of their diet is crayfish.

These studies do not differentiate whether these crayfish are the native or rusty version. The two bodies of water I target smallmouth at are Mille Lacs and the Rum River. Crayfish are the dominant prey they seek out in both of those. Do they eat other things? Of course they do. They’re predators, they won’t turn down a meal given the chance.

phishingruven wrote:

love the personal attacks. keep em coming bearcat.

I did not personally attack you sir, nor would I.

I also didn’t gloss over the damage they do to plant life. You seem to think they are untouchable. And I was letting you know that is incorrect.

When I taught scuba diving. To break the boredom of diving another midwest lake. We would catch crawdads in the rocks. Then swim up and release them. They wouldn’t make it halfway to the bottom. We would have schools of 1# bass following us up. A 1 or 2# bass could eat the largest one we could find. In Missouri they were bigger than any I’ve seen up north. So, my guess a 3 to 5# bass or walleye could eat the biggest Dad you could find. Would also think the nutrition to effort to catch ratio is also good. But that’s just my opinion, I could be wrong.

im not saying they dont get eaten. The easiest meal gets eaten first and most often. I caught both of those crayfish out of the same hole. Given the choice, the fish swimming by looking for a meal is going to eat the easiest one first. That being the small clawed, regular crayfish. the same thing happened with the perch i caught. I had a big, active minnow on one rod, and a small, almost dead minnow on another rod. The big minnow did not catch a fish and they were not interested in it, while the small minnow was a target for all sizes of the perch and i caught many on that size minnow.

phishingruven wrote:

im not saying they dont get eaten. The easiest meal gets eaten first and most often. I caught both of those crayfish out of the same hole. Given the choice, the fish swimming by looking for a meal is going to eat the easiest one first. That being the small clawed, regular crayfish. the same thing happened with the perch i caught. I had a big, active minnow on one rod, and a small, almost dead minnow on another rod. The big minnow did not catch a fish and they were not interested in it, while the small minnow was a target for all sizes of the <strong class=”ido-tag-strong”>perch and i caught many on that size minnow.

That argument honestly has no ground. It doesn’t make sense.
a big pike in the summer time eats a meal up to a 1/3 of its size in one bite. But it also preys on a ton of other fish smaller in size as well. To every small perch you see there are plenty of more dominant large species. My entire point was telling you that the rusty crayfish you said had no predators, does in fact have many predators. That big minnow you had was in the wrong spot. When I sit over a crappie hole. I wouldn’t drop down a decoy sucker and think wow, thats wierd. The crappie won’t eat it.

I’m not meaning to be a prick or coming at you. I was just informing you that the rusty is a very small spectrum on the food chain in many bodies of water

Bearcat89 wrote:

I wouldn’t drop down a decoy sucker and think wow, that wierd. The crappie won’t eat it.

If you dropped down a decoy sucker AND a crappie ate it, now we’re really on to something here.

If you dropped down a decoy sucker AND a crappie ate it, now we’re really on to something here.
[/quote]

Those are the kind of crappie I want to find

Bearcat89 wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>phishingruven wrote:</div>
im not saying they dont get eaten. The easiest meal gets eaten first and most often. I caught both of those crayfish out of the same hole. Given the choice, the fish swimming by looking for a meal is going to eat the easiest one first. That being the small clawed, regular crayfish. the same thing happened with the perch i caught. I had a big, active minnow on one rod, and a small, almost dead minnow on another rod. The big minnow did not catch a fish and they were not interested in it, while the small minnow was a target for all sizes of the <strong class=”ido-tag-strong”>perch and i caught many on that size minnow.

That argument honestly has no ground. It doesn’t make sense.
a big pike in the summer time eats a meal up to a 1/3 of its size in one bite. But it also preys on a ton of other fish smaller in size as well. To every small <em class=”ido-tag-em”>perch you see there are plenty of more dominant large species. My entire point was telling you that the rusty crayfish you said had no predators, does in fact have many predators. That big minnow you had was in the wrong spot. When I sit over a crappie hole. I wouldn’t drop down a decoy sucker and think wow, thats wierd. The <strong class=”ido-tag-strong”>crappie won’t eat it.

i just went back and read all my posts in this thread. In no post did i say that the rusty crayfish had no predators. I did however, say that about the eurasian ruffe.

I might have read it wrong. But then in that case why is it so hard to believe when gimruis mentioned his fish puking them up ? You said you needed to see pics to believe

And I’m still confused on the personal attack? Is it because we don’t agree on something so you feel attacked ?

Bearcat89 wrote:

And I’m still confused on the personal attack? Is it because we don’t agree on something so you feel attacked ?

Bearcat89 wrote:

With that thinking I’m going to guess he doesn’t think anything eats bull heads because the spines?

there is a way to ask question without assuming what one is thinking.

just like you said, you perceive it one way, i peceive it another way

Bearcat89 wrote:

Most is all a matter of perception