a couple of days ago I mentioned I would ask John Pitlo for some tips on how to ID a Saugeye… here is the reply he sent to me………
I take this oppurtunity to thank him for his great information….. he is one of the world foremost bioligists on river walleyes in my opinion….. and did a ground breaking study of radio telemetry of walleye, particularly in reference to their spawning habits….. he works for the Iowa DNR in fisheries research on the Mississppi…..
Its really kind of hard to describe exactly what a saugeye looks like
because it can have characteristics of each parent. It depends on which
characteristics overide the other. There can be several ways for this to
happen, male sauger X female walleye or male walleye X female sauger ( and
what happens when you cross a saugeye with a purebred of either a walleye or
sauger)?? That is why there is such a variation in characteristics. When
we do electrophoreisis ( a way seperating or grouping different populaitons
of the same species – for example- we look at walleye from the Mississippi
and those from the natural lakes in Iowa (Big Spirit Lake and Okoboji Lakes)
they are distinctly different by electrophoresis. All walleye in the
Mississippi River carry some sauger genetic material and this shows up in
electrophoresis. The only way to tell for sure if it is a saugeye is to do
the electrophoresis. But that said, you and I both know that it is possible
to tell some saugeye from the way they look externally. My best way do
describe it is – if it comes into the boat and you say sauger or walleye,
that is probably what it is – when you take a second look and have to start
guessing if its a walleye or a sauger, its probably a hybred. Some of the
most popular ones I have seen is a fish that looks like a walleye, but has
brown saddles, or a sauger that has a green sheen to its color. And yes,
sauger do have a light “creamy” tip on the caudal fin. the other way is to
look internally at what is know as pyloric ceaca (small blind gut endings
much like our appendix). I’m writting this from home, I’ll need to look in
the book to find out exactly how many each species has. There really is not
hard and fast rule to ID a saugeye other than they look “different” than
either parent. I know this is not the hard and fast rule and
characteristics you were hoping for, but thats the way it is. We regularly
see about 5-8% saugeyes in our samples. They spawn about the same time –
sauger go a little earlier than walleye, but walleye generally spawn in 2 or
3 places in a pool and all the fish move to those locations (at least in
Pool 13), sauger on the other hand spawn in smaller groups in lots of
different areas – also in the upper part of the river, walleye tend to spawn
over flooded reed canary grass and sauger have never been documented to do
that- so there is some seperation of the 2 species at spawning time. Hope
this helps.
Our river is finally going down and we can begin to do some walleye fishing.