Brown Bullhead
Ameirus nebulosus
Other Names: Creek cat, horned pout, speckled bullhead, red cat
Description: The brown bullhead has a dark yellowish to olive-brown back and upper sides, with noticeable mottling not seen on the black bullhead or channel catfish. It lacks scales and has obvious barbels (black or dusky, not white) around the mouth. Identifying characteristics include a flap-like adipose fin, a squared, rounded, or slightly forked tail, mottled back and sides, and a slight overbite.
Size: 7 to 14 inches
Food: Insect larvae, crustaceans, snails, small crayfish, worms, small fish, fish eggs
Spawning: Males fan out a saucer-shaped nest in mud in spring, typically late April or May in much of the walleye’s range. Nests in natural cavities are also used. The female deposits up to 10,000 eggs, which are guarded by both parents until hatching in about 8 days.
Range: Native to the Atlantic and Gulf Slope drainages, from Nova Scotia and New Brunswick to Alabama, and the St. Lawrence, Great Lakes, Hudson Bay, and Mississippi River basins from Quebec to Louisiana. Widely introduced elsewhere.
Habits and Habitat: Brown bullheads are common in weedy lakes, ponds, impoundments, sloughs, backwaters, and slow-flowing rivers and streams. Ideal water temperatures range from 78 to 82ºF. Bullhead schools feed on or near bottom, often picking midgefly larvae (bloodworms) from soft bottom. Hardy fish, they are able to withstand low oxygen levels and cloudy water conditions. Active primarily at night but will forage during the day.
Walleye Connection: You might think a bullhead’s sharp, venomous spines would make it tough for walleyes to swallow, but in truth juvenile bullheads are easy to catch and a common forage item in fertile fisheries. Particularly in eutrophic lakes (often equipped with aerators to prevent winterkill) that have high numbers of bullheads and walleyes, bullheads are a primary forage year-round, even during the winter when they are rooted out of the mud. A key time to take advantage of the bullhead-walleye connection is in the Postspawn Period (for both species), when bullheads of all sizes are moving out of marshes and other fertile areas—and walleyes are feeding aggressively. Check necked-down current areas connecting marshes with the main lake, as well as bars near such travel corridors.
Rainbow Smelt
Osmerus mordax
Other Names: Lake herring, leefish, frost fish
Description: A small, slender, silvery fish with a dark olive-green back, silvery, purplish-blue to pinkish sides, and white belly. Identifying characteristics include an adipose fin, deeply forked tail, upper jaw that extends beyond the eye, and large mouth with canine teeth.
Size: 7 to 10 inches
Food: Fish eggs, small fish, insect larvae, crustaceans
Spawning: Makes spawning run into small tributaries in spring at water temperatures from upper 40ºF to lower 50ºF range. Also may spawn over mainlake gravel deltas near shore. Spawns at night over bars and shallow riffles with current—a broadcast spawner, providing no parental care to eggs or fry.
Range: Found in the Arctic, Atlantic, and Pacific coastal drainages; also introduced and established in numerous inland fisheries including all five Great Lakes, the Mississippi River, and many coolwater reservoir systems.
Habits and Habitat: A saltwater species native to the Atlantic Ocean but introduced to freshwater systems across much of northern North America, the rainbow smelt matures in the open sea or open water of large lakes before migrating into tributaries to spawn. It prefers cool water temperatures and often remains in shallow water early in the season, before moving out to suspend in deeper water as temperatures rise.
Walleye Connection: In a somewhat ironic relationship, smelt compete with juvenile walleyes (and other small fish) for food and may prey upon walleye eggs and fry, thus hurting walleye populations; but smelt are also excellent forage. In reservoir systems, smelt often suspend near long points meeting deep water, attracting walleyes and providing savvy anglers with high-percentage trolling opportunities. Smelt also shift into shallow water, typically at night or in windy conditions—shadowed by hungry walleyes that present yet another forage-based fishing opportunity. In the Great Lakes, smelt may hold in 100 feet or more of water during the day; shallow forays are common; and walleyes intercepting these migrations are vulnerable to fishermen using minnowbaits that mimic the smelt’s slender profile. Come fall, smelt and walleyes move into major bays of natural lakes and drowned rivermouths, offering yet another angling pattern.
Yellow Perch
Perca flavescens
Other Names: American, lake, or ringed perch, green hornet
Description: Bright green to olive or golden-brown back with 6 to 9 dark vertical bars on bright yellowish green or yellow-orange sides; milky white belly. Distinguishing characteristics include long dorsal fin with two distinct lobes, and their lack of an adipose fin or large canine teeth.
Size: 6 to 11 inches
Food: Fish, crayfish, snails, insects, leeches
Spawning: In spring as water temperatures reach 45ºF, perch deposit strands of eggs among vegetation at night in shallow, weedy areas of lakes or sheltered areas of rivers. Each female may produce up to 200,000 eggs, which hatch in about 2 weeks with no parental care. Young perch migrate to open water, where they stay until moving into shoreline weedbeds at about 1 inch in length.
Range: Native to much of southern Canada and the northern U.S. east of the Rocky Mountains, although there are reports of native populations south to the Mobile Basin in Alabama. Widely introduced across the continent.
Habits and Habitat: Yellow perch prefer warm to cool, clear lakes with ample vegetation, and are also found to a lesser degree in slow-flowing weedy streams. Adaptable fish, they tolerate low oxygen and high levels of nutrients and suspended solids (turbidity). Often found in spindle-shaped schools of 50 to 200 or more fish of similar size and age, perch forage during the day, moving toward shore and settling to bottom as darkness falls and their eyesight fades.
Walleye Connection: Yellow perch are the predominant preyfish in many lakes in the northern and central portions of the walleye’s range, making up a large part of the walleye diet once juvenile fish switch from invertebrates to fish early in their first year.
Huge perch hatches can make walleye fishing difficult, but in general an understanding of perch behavior can put more walleyes in your livewell. Juvenile and adult perch are structure-oriented, often holding on or near bottom on points, humps, or deep flats connected to the shoreline. Large schools often gather on gravel shelves on sandy bars, small fingers on points, or slight depressions on sunken islands. Walleyes feed on perch year-round, but one of the key times for the interspecies connection is the perch spawn, when juvenile perch follow adults into spawning areas.
