Bow fin with babies - I took this

[Saltwater60]

We fish and in the st Lawrence we have caught some bowfin and my son and nephew claim we have them by us in the Niagara River. I’ve been in and around the Niagara River my entire life and never seen one until last night. My wife and I were kayaking and I saw a large fish swimming close to us and I thought what’s that? I saw the distinctive round eye on the tail and said it’s a bowfin. I circled back to learn that it had hundreds of babies by it and the pictures and video detail what we saw. It was amazing to see how the babies encircled the father because the dad sticks with them apparently. He stirred up the bottom and they came up to eat the stuff off the top. It was fascinating.
it appears to me on the one picture that there are 2-3 baby pike since they have a wide flat mouth but I’m not sure.
I don’t think the video will upload but I’ll try.

 

[Saltwater60]

Video is too large sorry guys.

 

[dwa12479]

Pretty cool!

 

[Drinkthekoolaid]

That's super interesting

 

[Saltwater60]

I had no clue fish around here did this sort of thing. It was really cool to see them swimming at the top getting food. They aren’t fearful of humans and I was less than 5-10 feet away. The fish even looked me dead in the eyes a few times.