I've already blogged about this becuase I think this is an under-documented natural occurrence that needs to be appreciated more. There, I said it.
I'm copying and pasting from my blog.
I got a neat opportunity today. I got to catch fish having sex!
If you're the sportsman outdoorsy type that's seen a lot of this before, please don't find me redundant. I've seen this happening a few times in my life myself, and each time I find it more and more interesting.
Over the past week, my little lakeside retreat that I frequent has seen some changes. In the beginning, from shore, you could see little tiny fish moving about, eating the copeopods and other small things that looked tasty. The next day, I saw a few larger fish hanging out near shore. A couple of days later, I find a mass of fish up near the shore. They weren't doing anything, but they were all adamant on being in that ten feet of hidden shoreline. They wouldn't budge, even as I walked on shore. I could reach out and touch them if I wanted. Yesterday, I went down to my spot and was greeted with hundreds of golf ball-like divots in the lake bed, and each one had a larger fish hovering above it. A few smaller fish were moving between the beds. Today, what I saw was an all out orgy.
Each large male had a bed that he'd hover over, and furiously defend from other smaller fish or other larger males that didn't have a bed to guard. Occasionally, a female fish would come in, move from bed to bed, find one she liked, and she'd begin to lay eggs in it, much to the delight of the male. When this happened, dozens of fingerling fish would try to swoop in and grab the eggs. Other males would see this and attempt to get in a fertilize the eggs behind the male that made the nest. The nest owner had to defend his nest and new eggs being laid from all of these intruders, and attempt to fertilize them as they came out of the female at the same time. When a nest guarding male had a quiet moment, he'd fan off debris from his nest using his caudal fin, in a literal broom like motion. He'd face up towards the surface of the water, and fan his fin back and fourth like someone sweeping a floor. Among all of the gill-flaring, egg laying, nest guarding, and egg stealing I spotted two largemouth bass patrolling the nesting sites, and one very large northern pike offshore looking for sickly fish to eat. It was amazing.
Here's a video I took of the spawning:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwD3CzQfQi8
And some pictures of a few of the fish I caught:
Here's a picture of the nest field:
I'm copying and pasting from my blog.
I got a neat opportunity today. I got to catch fish having sex!
If you're the sportsman outdoorsy type that's seen a lot of this before, please don't find me redundant. I've seen this happening a few times in my life myself, and each time I find it more and more interesting.
Over the past week, my little lakeside retreat that I frequent has seen some changes. In the beginning, from shore, you could see little tiny fish moving about, eating the copeopods and other small things that looked tasty. The next day, I saw a few larger fish hanging out near shore. A couple of days later, I find a mass of fish up near the shore. They weren't doing anything, but they were all adamant on being in that ten feet of hidden shoreline. They wouldn't budge, even as I walked on shore. I could reach out and touch them if I wanted. Yesterday, I went down to my spot and was greeted with hundreds of golf ball-like divots in the lake bed, and each one had a larger fish hovering above it. A few smaller fish were moving between the beds. Today, what I saw was an all out orgy.
Each large male had a bed that he'd hover over, and furiously defend from other smaller fish or other larger males that didn't have a bed to guard. Occasionally, a female fish would come in, move from bed to bed, find one she liked, and she'd begin to lay eggs in it, much to the delight of the male. When this happened, dozens of fingerling fish would try to swoop in and grab the eggs. Other males would see this and attempt to get in a fertilize the eggs behind the male that made the nest. The nest owner had to defend his nest and new eggs being laid from all of these intruders, and attempt to fertilize them as they came out of the female at the same time. When a nest guarding male had a quiet moment, he'd fan off debris from his nest using his caudal fin, in a literal broom like motion. He'd face up towards the surface of the water, and fan his fin back and fourth like someone sweeping a floor. Among all of the gill-flaring, egg laying, nest guarding, and egg stealing I spotted two largemouth bass patrolling the nesting sites, and one very large northern pike offshore looking for sickly fish to eat. It was amazing.
Here's a video I took of the spawning:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwD3CzQfQi8
And some pictures of a few of the fish I caught:
Here's a picture of the nest field:
