Russian River in Ukiah 3-1-08

they fight like trout.

All the ones I have caught don't compare to trout they hit the lure come right to the boat and splash around a little in my opinion the are the worst fighting fish I have ever caught. Even those tailless trout fight better.

but it seems to little old me that we could maybe enjoy catching and eating the scwafish from the non-native watersheds.

Go to lake Pillsbury use a yellow Roostertail and you can fill your truck. Never eaten one but I hear they taste like Carp and are just as boney. I have eaten carp and they are tasty if you know how to deal with the bones. Vegetarians must taste like a Peta person .

they fight like trout.

All the ones I have caught don't compare to trout they hit the lure come right to the boat and splash around a little in my opinion the are the worst fighting fish I have ever caught. Even those tailless trout fight better.

Mickfish, you got one like this?


or you got one like this?

Both and they fought about the same

     Yes Squawfish old name I've herd them called Hardmouth also new name Northern Pikeie Minnow more P.C.. I've caught them to 12#s in the Russian also caught them on the Eel, and the valley rivers Feather, Yuba, American, and the Sacramento. They use to have and eradication program on the Sacramento where they would let you fish in the closed zone below Redbluff diversion dam and kill as many as you could. I think Oregon still has a bounty on them, bounty fisher?, I read a few years ago where a angler in Oregon got a prize for turning the mosts frozen Squawfish heads. He also made $3700 @ $3.00 a head. I've eaten them a few times and agree their not very good. I kill them when ever I catch one native or not.
                    Dale

Hardmouth is like slang term, not a species name or anything, and they are definitely not the same as a "toothy" pike like those found in other parts of the country. (And Lake Davis) As far as fighting goes, they suck... dead weight and thats about it.  They are "trash fish" because they are not really all that edible, are not a good game fish, over proliferate and feed on the young of important species like salmon and steelhead, and bass, and crappie, and perch, and everthing else in what ever water shed they are found.  Hobie, the difference when they are native to a fishery is they are in balance with everything else in that fishery, and their numbers dont tend to get out of control... when they are non-native, or better put: invasive, they tend to overrun everything else in the environment.  Take lake pillsbury, you could go there and kill literally truckloads of the damn things and not make a dent in the population.  You seriously begin to dread getting a bite, because odds are, it is one of them.  Theres an idea... a squawfish derby just for us yakers at pillsbury....imagine the stink!

Another item of interest: there are of course several subspecies of the darn things... clearlake actually has its own type.  Oh, and the name squawfish was changed to pikeminnow by the DFG for reasons of political correctness.  The pictures someone put up earlier... the big one looks like a colorado squawfish (big lips), where the little one looks like one of our local strain.  And yes.. they do look alot like a chub, but chubs are part of the "gila" family and are not related as far as I know... the species name is different.

They are also all over the Rio Vista side of the Delta.

what is the method of "release" for them there?

Wow, I learn something new every day. I didn't realize these fish were Russian natives. Thanks for the info Sean.

Pikeminnow? WTG DFG. You want to rename a species, so you take two generic names that themselves refer to a whole variety of different species and then stick those two together. Genius.

Couldn't they have called it something else, something unique? If it's universally disliked maybe they could have called it the trafficjam fish.

(I caught one trolling for trout on lake shasta. I thought it was a small bass. It was a trafficjam fish that must have been pushing 3 feet. If I said it fought like a paper bag that would be doing paper bags an injustice. I also had no idea what it was at the time).

To back track a little, they may be native, but the coyote dam at mendocino is not... The area above that dam was the traditional spawning habitat of a large number of returning steelhead... the shallow waters and small streams up higher were good breeding ground because it was too restrictive an area for the squawfish to enter... when the dam was built it was the general idea that the steelhead breeding activity in the main branch of the river would increase, to help make up for the loss of habitat above the lake.  This hasnt happened however, and the main reason for that is predation by squawfish.  (along with changes in hydrology and other things I dont understand) Steelhead numbers are down and squawfish numbers are up, so please dont advise people against a little population control.  This problem is serious enough that the army corps did a feasibility study on constructing a "fishway" that would divert water from the east fork, around Lake mendocino and dump into the west fork near Calpella.  Doing so would give fish a chance to actually spawn up in cold creek again.  (which has very few large squawfish do to its small size) All this to get the spawning steelhead the hell away from those nasty @ss squawfish!  The native fish thing doesnt really hold water here because the waterway itself is no longer "native" so to speak.  The balance is off, and over the years I've caught a hell of alot more pike in the russian than I have steelhead. (please no jokes about not being a good steelhead fisherman. This is not a subject I take lightly, and neither should any fisherman)

to clarify, its not that im all for the slaughter of pike in their native enviroments, but on the other hand population control is important... the russian is not what is used to be, and I think predation (dont get me started on seals and sea lions) is a serious problem. 

Pikeminnow? WTG DFG. You want to rename a species, so you take two generic names that themselves refer to a whole variety of different species and then stick those two together. Genius.

Couldn't they have called it something else, something unique? If it's universally disliked maybe they could have called it the trafficjam fish.

(I caught one trolling for trout on lake shasta. I thought it was a small bass. It was a trafficjam fish that must have been pushing 3 feet. If I said it fought like a paper bag that would be doing paper bags an injustice. I also had no idea what it was at the time).

Love it!  Ive caught them in excess of 15lbs.  They fight like a dead branch!

Wow, so it's all is the fish's fault...  sounds some bias there... but I guess I was just biased, cuz I don't catch fish...  so any thing that stay on the hook is precious fish for me!

& I messed up on the hyper link to the topic, so here
http://www.norcalkayakanglers.com/index.php/topic,7233.0.html

LOL.. no, its not all the fishes fault.  Like I said, hydrology and stream bed morpholgy and all that scientific stuff is a problem too.  However, I dont see how we are gonna change the course or flow of the russian river, but we can dang sure catch pike!

Interesting stuff Bryan and I agree with you on most of it, but I don't know how much of the Steelies decline I can blame on the Squaws. When I started fishing the River there was a lot more steelies but there were a lot more squaws also you could see huge rafts of them in the summer and the bank would be littered with them during steelhead season, now I don't see or catch very many. I think all the fish in the river are in serious decline so I can't really blame it on the Squaws. I think that is sorta like blaming the Stripers on the decline of the Delta Minnow.  Unless they have all moved up to Cloverdale