The tricky art of saving suckers

They don’t like the sun: not in the wild, and definitely not in holding tanks. The foot-or-so-long flannelmouth and bluehead suckers grouped together and then fled the moment Joe Gillis heaved the covers off their watery pens at the East Fork Hatchery southeast of Pinedale. In a prairie creek or river, the creatures might seek solace from the glare of the sun under the curve of an overhanging bank or the shade of a willow. Here they raced to a corner where a bit of shade still remained. Gillis spoke about the two sucker species with a mixture of irritation and admiration. He’s spent decades raising cold-water fish like rainbow and brown trout. He can help trout artificially reproduce by the literal millions before sending the offspring out across the state, region and even the country. But suckers, well, they proved not just challenging but downright difficult. “They don’t like change,” he said.

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