Length: 9 inches
Weight: 8 ounces
Coloring: silvery with some pink and purple iridescence,with a
greenish tinge above lateral line and a silvery white ventral surface
Common Names: bloater chub, bloat, chub, Hoy's cisco
cisco de fumage (French)
Found in Lakes: Michigan, Huron, Ontario and Superior

After several species of the larger deepwater chubs in Lake Michigan
succumbed to the combined pressures of fishing, sea lamprey attack and
alewife competition, the smallest variety -- the bloater -- fell heir to the
generic family name of "chub."

These small, soft-fleshed, oily fish will probably never be sought as game
fish. They dwell too far from shore and have mouths too small for
ordinary bait, since they feed mostly on zooplankton and other organisms
near the lake bottom. But as smoked fish they command a good price at
the market.

During the 1970s, bloater population in Lake Michigan dropped
alarmingly, due apparently to alewife predation and competition. In 1976,
the states ringing Lake Michigan issued a two-and-a-half-year ban on
chub fishing. This ban and the decline in alewife numbers in the 1980s
have allowed the lake's chub population to rebound, and commercial
fishermen are once more harvesting chubs. Scientists also take
satisfaction in this recovery, because the native bloaters are efficient
feeders, growing more on less food than do alewives.

Historically, bloaters were disdained as the smallest and least attractive of
Lake Superior's five deepwater chubs. Then overfishing and the sea
lamprey eliminated the larger chub species, leaving only the bloaters, a
few shortjaw and kiyi chubs, and some hybrids of these three species. As
the sea lamprey ravaged the top predators in the lake, bloaters grew in
size and numbers.

U.S. fishermen have now turned to the slow-growing bloaters to bolster
their catches taken at 200 to 350-foot depths. Despite the success of this
market, Canadian fishermen rarely go out for them, except for some
fishermen on Lake Huron.

As a sport fish, bloaters hold little attraction in either country. They dwell
too far from shore, and their mouths are too small for ordinary bait.