Tui Chub - Habitat and Behavior

Habitat and Behavior

Tui chubs are found in a variety of habitats, including anything from small streams to large lakes and reservoirs, and both high cold lakes, such as Lake Tahoe, and warmer desert streams.

They spawn between late April and early August, depending on temperatures. In Pyramid Lake the peak season is June; males move inshore first, then congregate around arriving females in shallow water, preferring areas of heavy vegetation. The female scatters her eggs randomly over a wide area, where they are then fertilized by several males. The hatchlings remain in the heavy vegetation for the remainder of the summer. In Lake Tahoe some chubs spawn around stream mouths in July.

Tui chub diet is varied; young fish eat mostly invertebrates, adding plant material and especially algae as they mature. Habits also vary by location and the fineness of the gill rakers, so for instance fine-rakered forms in Pyramid Lake feed more on plankton in open water than the coarse-rakered forms, who live near the botton and eats more plants and algae. The largest individuals will eat other fish also. In Pyramid Lake the endangered Lahontan cutthroat trout feeds on the Tui chub; the Lahontan cutthroat trout has been studied extensively due to water management decisions affected the water quality of the Truckee River and Pyramid Lake.