haul to their respective state agency. Bigmouth buffalo are then trucked in oxygenated water tanks to markets where they are sold alive. Though it has small bones suspended in its muscle tissue like northern pike, its good flavor makes it one of the most valuable of the traditional, non-game freshwater fish. In addition to being a foodfish, the bigmouth buffalo has recently become a sportfish, as night and day bowfishing have become increasingly popular in the 21st Century. Although commercial harvest is regulated, sport bowfishing remains unchecked, even as wanton waste is pervasive. Ecology The bigmouth buffalo is part of a rather unique ecology in shallow-water systems. The larval bigmouths are pelagic and sometimes benthic feeders, mostly of copepods and cladocerans, but also phytoplankton and chironomids. Bigmouth buffalo, unlike its close relatives the black and smallmouth buffalos, is a filter-feeder, using its very fine gill rakers to strain plankton from the water. It sometimes feeds near the bottom, using short up-and down movements to filter from the water the plankton that hover near the bottom or rest lightly on it. The juveniles and adults are mostly limnetic plankton feeders that also eat cladocerans, copepods, algae, chironomids, ostracods, and other insect larvae and invertebrates depending on availability. The optimum habitat for spawning bigmouth buffalo is highly vegetated waters. They are a very resilient fish that can tolerate high turbidity and low oxygen levels. They can be found in waters with turbidity levels over 100 ppm. A minimum total dissolved solids is 200 ppm during the growing season. During spring and summer, 50–75% pools should be present, with backwaters, and marsh areas and 25-75% littoral area and protected embayments during summer for the habitat to be suitable. Bigmouth can be found in waters from . The optimal temperatures for incubation and hatching of eggs are from , but they can develop in temperatures reaching up to . The bigmouth buffalo prefers slow-moving water that does not reach a velocity over 30 cm/s. The bigmouth buffalo are group spawners which produce 250,000 eggs/kg of adult weight; their eggs are about 1.5 mm in diameter. The bigmouth buffalo is a spring spawner generally spawning between April and June when the water temperature is between , but may skip spawning if water-level fluctuations are not adequate. The bigmouth buffalo is a broadcaster that has adhesive eggs, which it lays in vegetated waters. Females seek submergent