This long, jut-jawed fish has an image problem. Females deposit up to 100,000 eggs, scattered at random. The adhesive eggs stick to flooded vegetation, hatching 12-14 days later. There is no parental care. Young remain in shallow nursery areas feeding on zooplankton before converting to a fish diet.
Northerns usually reach sexual maturity in the third year of life.
For those of us of northern European ancestry and an interest in such things, this is one of the fishes that would have fed our ancestors in the distant past.