Jacks Fork River Access.
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Scientific Name
Catostomus commersonii
Family
Catostomidae (suckers) in the order Cypriniformes (carps, minnows, and loaches)
Description
The white sucker is slender, with fine scales and a short dorsal fin. The scales are largest near the tail fin, becoming smaller toward the head. The lips are covered with small bumps. The back and sides are greenish with a brassy or silvery luster; the belly is white. This coloration makes it almost invisible when resting on a gravel stream bed. The dorsal and tail fins are dusky or clear; the lower fins are white, often tinged with yellow or orange.
Other Common Names
Black Sucker
Size
Total length: 9 to 15 inches; maximum about 23 inches.
Where To Find
Nearly statewide, but absent from the Bootheel lowlands and the southeastern Ozarks. Abundant and generally distributed in prairie streams of central and northeastern Missouri. Locally common but spotty westward in the prairie region and over the parts of the Ozarks where it occurs.
Habitat and Conservation
Decidedly a small-creek fish, occurring only rarely in major rivers. In prairie regions, it is abundant in deep, sparsely vegetated pools of high-gradient, often intermittent headwater streams with gravelly or rocky bottoms. In the Ozarks, it occurs in rather densely vegetated spring branches, spring-fed streams, and cool overflow pools with groundwater seepage. Also found in Lake Taneycomo.
The white sucker lives in schools near the bottom.
Food
Feeding habits and diet vary with age. For the first ten days of life, the young suckers have terminal mouths and feed near the surface on bloodworms, small crustaceans, protozoa, and similar. They soon develop the lower, horizontal mouth of the adults, and from then on they feed almost entirely on the bottom, starting with organic-rich bottom ooze, then moving on to a generalized diet of immature aquatic insects.
Status
Nongame fish.
Life Cycle
Life Cycle
The white sucker is an early spring spawner. In central Missouri, spawning season extends from late March through April. Spawning occurs in gravelly areas near the lower ends of pools, in quiet water, or where the current begins to quicken. Many individuals occupy a single site and create a large area of clean, silt-free gravel by their activities. The males remain more or less continuously over the spawning area, but the females enter only when ready to spawn. Spawning is accompanied by violent vibrations that raise clouds of silt and bury the eggs in the gravel. The eggs hatch in 18 to 20 days at a temperature of about 50 F.
Individuals can live 17 years.
Human Connections
Folklorist Vance Randolph reported that oldtime Ozark fishermen told him that redhorse and white suckers did not spawn until they saw dogwood trees blooming on the banks of the White River. While it is unlikely that the fish are actually looking for flowers, it is very likely that the water reaches the correct temperature for spawning about the same time dogwoods are blooming. The study of annual cycles and seasons of natural events (and their interrelationships) is called phenology.
Ecosystem Connections
Suckers are one of the dominant groups of large fishes in Missouri waters. Each kind of sucker has its own particular habitat preference. Suckers feed mostly by sucking up material from the bottom. The different types of suckers have slightly different positioning and shapes of their mouths, which causes them to specialize in different kinds of foods. The white sucker's mouth positioning changes as it grows from a fry to a fingerling to an adult.
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Caption
White sucker, Catostomus commersonii
Credit
Lance Merry
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Where to See Species
This area offers access to the Gasconade River for fishing and floating. Amenities include a parking area, privy, and concrete boat ramp.
Mount Shira Access was purchased in 1966. The area is mainly old field grasslands with a small amount of bottomland timber.
Stones Corner Access was purchased from Spikes Tool and Die Company, Inc. in 1976. The area provides access to Center Creek.
About Fishes in Missouri
Missouri has more than 200 kinds of fish, more than are found in most neighboring states. Fishes live in water, breathe with gills, and have fins instead of legs. Most are covered with scales. Most fish in Missouri “look” like fish and could never be confused with anything else. True, lampreys and eels have snakelike bodies — but they also have fins and smooth, slimy skin, which snakes do not.