Big Striped Fish - Maybe Creek Chub?

Hi Everyone,

Today I went to the Cleveland Zoo, and as I walked across the bridge that crosses the stream to the Northern Trek area I saw a lot of fish activity. The bright sun made it easy to see everything in the water. I spotted a large group of suckers on the shaded side of the bridge in a deep pool, and I decided to check out the other side. I saw a large group, guessing 20+ fish, that were all about the same size (guessing 10"). They all had 3 distinctive strips, 1 on top, a light one and a dark lateral line. As I observed them I thought I ruled out bass, sauger, and other possibilities I thought. I saw they were also breeding, one would be swimming in place and 2 would come up on each side. I wanted to go down to the stream and get a closer look, but being where I was I doubt the Zoo would have appreciated it.

When I moved on to see the Wolves and native fish display, I saw a little card for creek chub and that's what made me think that could be what the fish I saw were. But the size and the really dark stripes are what have me a little stumped. Are the stripes just darker due to breeding?

I think the stream is the Big Creek, and the drainage is the Cuyahoga.

If you would like to see another photo I can provide, turns out I took more photos of these fish than I did of the other animals at the zoo.

They look like some kind of Castomidae, so not a creek chub.

Agreed. Definitely a sucker. Looks like an Erimyzon (chubsucker) to me. I couldn't tell you if it is a lake (sucetta) or a creek (oblongus) chubsucker though..

I would say those look like white suckers in breeding coloration.

I think you're right, Derek. They look WAY more like a white sucker than a chubsucker. I've seen plenty of chubsuckers swimming and that stripe is pretty prominent, so my brain immediately went to chubsucker. But the body.head shape is wrong. I'm going to agree with you..

Here is a white sucker with spawning colors for reference. Looks like that's what is to me!

That's cool! In my years of exploration I don't recall ever seeing a white sucker with breeding colors. I must have never been in the right place at the right time. What a difference that is from its usual silver / grayish color. Do their colors fade quickly after breeding? That might explain the other large group of suckers resting on in the shaded side of the bridge.

Maybe someone else can chime in about how quickly they lose their coloration. I did notice that the ones I caught lost some of their coloration in the time I had them out of the water, so my guess would be yes they lose their coloration quickly after they're done spawning. Here is one I caught at a different time.