# Moon-eye question???



## gsepan (Jun 6, 2001)

A few years back while drifting speaders by Grassy Island I managed to catch 2 moon-eyes. I took some video footage of them (12 & 14" fish) and then read they were good eating so I carved them up and gave 'um a try. Not tasty as far as I'm concerned, I'll stick to perch (freshwater shrimp as I call them) and Walleye. My question is... Has anyone ever caught on of these fish and if so was I wrong to eat them? I haven't seen another since, are they endangered? I kinda wished I would have had them mounted now. Any of you veteran anglers hooked into one of these fish. FYI... When I caught them and broght 'um into the boat, they blead like a stuck pig even though I didn't gill hook them and the scales (about the size of a dime) flaked off very easily.


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## Gone Fishing (Jul 31, 2001)

gsepan, I don't think I have caught one for almost 20 years but I have caught a few in my lifetime. I don't know if they are endangered but they are quite rare. I tried to do a search on Michigan endangered fish and I didn't find it listed but I also didn't see Grayling so something must be wrong.


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## gsepan (Jun 6, 2001)

I caught these fish 4 years ago... The wind was howling and the drift was rather fast. Don't know if that had anything to do with me catching them. I was using small pieces of crawler on a spreader rig. 20 years ago were they plentiful? Nice looking fish and I see where their name came from as the eyes were huge and bulging out of the head.


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## tony_1 (Dec 6, 2001)

gsepan

I've haven't caught on in a few years. Occasionally we get a few ice fishing on LSC. My dad would tell that they are horrible to eat but good for bait. So we just released them. I've caught a few walleye with moon-eye's in the belly mostly in the winter and in bigger fish. I haven't see any in the bellies of the walleye's I've caught in the past few years, so they might be on the decline.


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## Dustin Roy (Feb 20, 2017)

When i live on st. Joseph River and thers millons so not endangered resson u havent caught any more is because they dont bite much of any bait at all have to snag them or get really lucky they say there good eating if soaked in salt 24 hours then smoked idk havent tried them but hope i helped


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## Wallywarrior (Apr 1, 2016)

Dustin Roy said:


> When i live on st. Joseph River and thers millons so not endangered resson u havent caught any more is because they dont bite much of any bait at all have to snag them or get really lucky they say there good eating if soaked in salt 24 hours then smoked idk havent tried them but hope i helped


They bite in South Dakota. I've had more than one five moon eye days over the past few years. 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## alex-v (Mar 24, 2005)

Not on Michigan's Endangered Specie list that I know of nor on the Threatened Specie list.

I took a quick look and there no category for them on the Master Angler application. There used to be since some of the older listings show entered fish. I found some info that Michigan has only two distinct populations of the fish and those are here in the southeast part of the state. There can be incidental mooneye in other parts of the state but the two viable breeding populations seem to be in this corner.

They seem to be a top feeding fish which might explain why few of them are caught.

Do a google search for Michigan Mooneye. Some interesting links will pop up.
...


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## Zib (Jan 7, 2008)

I used to catch them a lot on Lake St. Clair back in the early to mid 90's & it was about 1 every other trip it seemed like. I haven't caught one since 2001 I think, so I would suspect that the population is down most likely due to the gobies eating their eggs or some other factor.


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## JimP (Feb 8, 2002)

Same thing in the 90's, we caught a couple fishing spawn in the Clinton at Yates.
At first we thought they were huge 2# - 3# Alewives...took a while to identify them.
They stunk after an hour on the stringer so we buried them.


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