Have Iowa lawmakers finally hooked a state fish?

Boasting all the colors of the rainbow, the Iowa darter is indisputably a handsome guy. Is the species ready ― and worthy ― to represent the state it's named for?

Iowa Rep. John Wills, R-Spirit Lake, thinks the Iowa darter's time has come. He has introduced a resolution in the Iowa House that would designate it as the official state fish. The proposed resolution cleared a hurdle Thursday by winning the endorsement of an Iowa House subcommittee.

If you've never heard of the Iowa darter, that's not surprising. At about 2½-inches long, there aren’t any hanging as trophies over someone’s fireplace.

And colorful as the Iowa darter might be, its other claim to fame is its quickness. It's capable of often moving along the bottom of a stream or lake faster than the human eye can follow, making it hard to spot in the wild.

47 states have an official fish. Why not Iowa?

Iowa is one of only three states that does not have a state fish, the others being Indiana and Ohio.

It's not as though there have been no attempts to designate a state fish for Iowa.

A perennial past nominee was the channel catfish. It enjoyed about the same success as the late Minnesota Gov. Harold Stassen, who famously ran unsuccessfully for president nine times.

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The failed quest to get the channel catfish designated as Iowa’s official fish was the dream of the late George Marzeck of West Burlington, an outdoor artist and writer who pushed for it from 1968 until his death in 2006 at the age of 82.

Tom Sands, then an Iowa House Republican from Columbus Junction, was one of the legislators who tried to champion Marzeck’s cause over the years. But once released into the sea of legislators, the bewhiskered, scaleless channel cat quickly fell prey to other fish.

“Naming an official state fish attracted a lot of interest in the Legislature,” said Sands, “just not for the channel catfish.

“It seems like every time I brought it up, other legislators would come forward with four or five other fish they’d rather see named."

Former State Sen. Tom Courtney, a Burlington Democrat, also took up the cause, with similar results. He remembers Marzeck's persistence.

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“I met with him (Marzeck) and he went on and on about how great the channel catfish is. He probably called me three or four times during the session about it,” Courtney said.

But the campaign for statewide recognition of the channel catfish ultimately fell short as other legislators did not see the designation as important enough to devote time to, Courtney said.

Iowa darter benefits from sophisticated campaign

Now, nearly 20 years later, the flashier new candidate for state fish has entered the political arena spurred on by the Iowa Chapter of the American Fisheries Society. The organization has produced a “campaign video” for the Iowa darter that would make a lot of politicians’ green with envy.

It disparages the other state fish of the region, largely a collection of common bass, pike, and, yes, the channel cat.

“Looking at the state fish throughout the upper Midwest is predictable and frankly, a bit tired. The Iowa darter has vivid colors and attitude not matched by the other state fish in the Midwest and reflects our heritage. There’s nothing unique about the channel catfish,” the narrator of the video states.

In making its pitch for the Iowa darter, the Fisheries Society notes several qualities it believes makes it the best choice. It's:

• Endemic to Iowa.

• Colorful.

• Representative of native fish diversity.

• An indicator of better water quality.

• Unique.

“The goldfinch (state bird), the wild prairie rose (state flower), the Hawkeye and the Cyclone are all unique to Iowa. Why not our state fish?” the Fisheries Society asks in its video.

No other creature bears Iowa's name

The Iowa darter was first discovered and documented in 1859 by a French biologist and then discovered again in 1884 by another biology team doing survey work. Through 1892 it was believed that the species could not be found outside its namesake state, but the range is actually quite large, extending from Wyoming and Montana to Vermont.

The Iowa darter can be found “quite often” with the right equipment and knowledge of where to look, said Mike Hawkins, district fisheries management biologist for the DNR at Spirit Lake, one of its favored habitats.

Yet the little fish is still considered to be a “species of greatest conservation need,” Hawkins said, meaning the numbers are declining and it is in need of attention to prevent the need to list it as threatened under state or federal regulation. The primary concern is degradation of its habitat through stream straightening, sedimentation and excess nutrients.

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In addition to its colorful markings, the Iowa darter has uniqueness in its very name.

No other fish, mammal, reptile, amphibian, insect, plant or bacteria has “Iowa” in its moniker, Hawkins said.

Channel cat fans aren't ready to concede

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The Fisheries Society points out that Iowa is “late in the game in naming a state fish, not because we haven’t tried. What if it is we just haven’t been pushing the right fish?”

But the old channel cat legislative campaigners, Courtney and Sands, still aren’t convinced.

“Man, I hope they don’t choose a darter,” Courtney said when told of the latest effort.

“Every restaurant on the Mississippi from Dubuque to Keokuk have catfish on the menu. People in Iowa love their catfish,” he said.

And despite its flashy colors in the wild, the Iowa darter fails an important aesthetic in Sands eyes.

“All I know is that a channel catfish looks awfully good on the plate,” Sands said.

Kevin Baskins covers jobs and the economy for the Des Moines Register. Reach him at kbaskins@registermedia.com.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: A fish tale: Campaign in Iowa seeks to designate a state fish