You weren't catching what you thought you were catching?

[billmac]

This is a spinoff of another thread I started.

Did you ever figure out the fish you were catching (or have caught) weren't actually what you thought they were?

 

The first fish I caught as a boy, after ice-out, was redfin mullet.  I only found out a few years ago that redfin mullet don't look anything like what I was catching.  Turns out I was catching silver redhorse.

 

No one ever fishes for them, but our rivers in northern NY are loaded with shiners and they inhabit the same areas and hit the same baits as smallmouth, so I've caught thousands of them.  Turns out that the "shiners" I was catching are most likely fallfish.

 

Although I can tell the difference if I'm paying attention, I have no doubt I've caught plenty of pickerel that I assumed were just small pike.

 

I imagine I've misidentified various sunfish over the years as bluegill.

 

Anyone else?

[Fallser]

I still get the sunfish mixed up after many years of fishing.  As a kid, they were just sunfish..  Now I have to figure if it's a bluegill, pumpkinseed, redbreast, redear, green and there's probably a few I've missed, plus in the creek I fish, they all spawn at around the same time and in the same area.  There are some interesting mixes in that creek.

I can tell the difference between Northern Pike and Chain Pickerel. Even small ones, they have very different markings.  Plus there are no pike around here.

Small pike

 

Large Chain Pickerel

 

I wasn't sure what this one was when I caught it.  Maybe a small Muskie.  I caught it in a lake in central Vermont that kind of ruled out Muskie.  I had to google it, turned out it was a Grass Pickerel.  And a almost a trophy size one.

 

I've caught enough of both creek chubs and fallfish over the years to tell the difference between them.  Neither of them resemble what we would call "shiners" down here.

  The local names for fish vary.  The first time we went to Ontario, we kept driving by road-side restaurants that were advertising fresh fried "pickerel".  Now, chain pickerel are decent eating if you get the Y bones out, but I'd never seen them on a restaurant menu before.  Turned out they were walleye. Specks are crappie in the south, and brook trout in parts of New England.   

[billmac]

8 hours ago, Fallser said:

Specks are crappie in the south, and brook trout in parts of New England

I wonder what they call actual brook trout?  Do crappie even live in brooks?

[bulldog1935]

colloquial names for fish are acceptable for common names.  

In s. Texas, if it's not a bass, it's a "perch" - to me it's a bluegill, and I know the species distinctions in detail.  

"Googleye" here gets used for rock bass (below), warmouth (^) and green sunfish, and it's listed that way in the official state (TPWD) species database.  

 

In much of the Mississippi drainage, "striper" is used for white bass.  

 

All that matters with colloquial common names is that we understand each other.  

[billmac]

Once nice thing is that I don't hear the term "walleyed pike" much anymore.

[MN Fisher]

1 minute ago, billmac said:

Once nice thing is that I don't hear the term "walleyed pike" much anymore.

Ya - drove me nuts when I was younger considering the close relative of the walleye is the yellow perch.

[Bluebasser86]

14 hours ago, bulldog1935 said:

colloquial names for fish are acceptable for common names.  

In s. Texas, if it's not a bass, it's a "perch" - to me it's a bluegill, and I know the species distinctions in detail.  

"Googleye" here gets used for rock bass, warmouth and green sunfish, and it's listed that way in the official state (TPWD) species database.  

That's a good side by side comparison of a warmouth and rock bass. 

 

I caught a lot of what I called "pumpkinseeds" when I was a kid. Come to find out many years later, I was actually catching hybrid bluegill/green sunfish that the state frequently stocks and there are no true pumpkinseeds in Kansas. 

[MIbassyaker]

On 4/18/2021 at 8:45 AM, bulldog1935 said:

colloquial names for fish are acceptable for common names.  

In s. Texas, if it's not a bass, it's a "perch" - to me it's a bluegill, and I know the species distinctions in detail.  

"Googleye" here gets used for rock bass (below), warmouth (^) and green sunfish, and it's listed that way in the official state (TPWD) species database.  

 

I discovered just recently that one little lake that I thought had a lot of rock bass, actually has a lot of warmouth. I had never looked very closely at them until I caught one that was really dark, took a pic, and looked it up when I got home.  Since then, every little sunfish I have caught at that same lake has been  a warmouth, making me think all the previous ones were too.

[bulldog1935]

@MIbassyaker  Yeah, warmouth are Lepomis sp., and do better in warmer and stiller water than what I call rock bass, Ambloplites, sp.  

I catch the latter in our coldwater tailrace.  

When I was a kid, my dad and I knew a couple of spots on Canyon Lake where the warmouth bedded up like crappie, and we caught (and ate) some bruisers.  

[TheBasslayer]

I thought that this was a Walleye, but it is actually either a sauger or a saugeye when @Bluebasser86 told me in other species latest catch thread.

[J Francho]

On 4/17/2021 at 8:03 AM, billmac said:

The first fish I caught as a boy, after ice-out, was redfin mullet.  I only found out a few years ago that redfin mullet don't look anything like what I was catching.  Turns out I was catching silver redhorse.

I always thought "redfin mullet" was just a common name for a redhorse sucker (Moxostoma carinatum).  There isn't really any other fish I know that goes by that name.  At any rate, redhorse suckers are a beast in current.

 

I've caught so few white crappie, it probably never occurred to me that I caught something different than the typical black crappie, but I must have.  As a kid, I just thought it was a light pigment crappie, or "strawberry bass" as they're known here.

[bulldog1935]

In our cold tailwater, if you're catching redhorse, you're matching the hatch.  

This one took a swinging caddis during a hatch.  And yes, they have shoulders - we call them Guadalupe redfish.  

It was Gary Borger, referring to some form of fish psychologists, reported that trout have an IQ of 6, but cyprinids have an IQ of 12.  

It was in Gary's stealth talk, illustrating his quote, big fish aren't smart, big fish are cowards.  By natural selection, brave and inquisitive fish become fodder.  

[Bankbeater]

A few years ago I was catching warmouth, but I thought they were sunfish hybrids.

[the reel ess]

My dad referred to bass that weren't white or striped as "black bass". Only later did I learn they were actually largemouth. We don't have "brown bass" near here. It seemed everywhere I fished has 4 or 5 species of small panfish, which we simply referred to as bream. Still do. This covers bluegill, warmouth, shellcracker (redear), long eared sunfish, green sunfish and redbreast. Also, we used to catch occasional small yellow perch while crappie fishing and we had no idea what they were. We just called them "green bream". I called a lot of white bass stripers before I figured the difference out.

On 4/20/2021 at 8:52 PM, bulldog1935 said:

@MIbassyaker  Yeah, warmouth are Lepomis sp., and do better in warmer and stiller water than what I call rock bass, Ambloplites, sp.  

I catch the latter in our coldwater tailrace.  

When I was a kid, my dad and I knew a couple of spots on Canyon Lake where the warmouth bedded up like crappie, and we caught (and ate) some bruisers.  

I've caught warmouth on a topwater frog and a T rigged craw. If these fish were bigger they'd rule the lake.

[bulldog1935]

this is my buddy's catch on a fly rod with Sneaky Pete

[billmac]

On 4/21/2021 at 9:53 AM, J Francho said:

I always thought "redfin mullet" was just a common name for a redhorse sucker (Moxostoma carinatum).

The silver redhorse seems to have the right range for my area.  They look pretty similar.

When I was a kid we called rock bass crappie.

[CrankFate]

An old timer once told me that he knew a guy that caught a “wallagen” which is a walleye muskellunge hybrid.

[OCdockskipper]

When I was younger, we would catch sunfish that had larger mouths than bluegill and would aggressively go after bass lures.  We called them Rock Bass.  Years later, I found out that they were actually Green Sunfish.

 

I caught a dozen or so small bass from a Georgia pond on nearly consecutive casts and thought I was dealing with a population of stunted largemouths.  Finally, I looked a bit closer at them, did a quick google search and realized they were actually Suwanee bass.  Much more aggressive than largemouths.

 

[ArthurLK11]

On 4/25/2021 at 2:16 PM, OCdockskipper said:

When I was younger, we would catch sunfish that had larger mouths than bluegill and would aggressively go after bass lures.  We called them Rock Bass.  Years later, I found out that they were actually Green Sunfish.

 

I caught a dozen or so small bass from a Georgia pond on nearly consecutive casts and thought I was dealing with a population of stunted largemouths.  Finally, I looked a bit closer at them, did a quick google search and realized they were actually Suwanee bass.  Much more aggressive than largemouths.

 

Got some pictures? I think Suwannee are the coolest looking black bass species. I've never heard of them being in ponds though, just rivers. 

On 4/25/2021 at 12:46 PM, CrankFate said:

An old timer once told me that he knew a guy that caught a “wallagen” which is a walleye muskellunge hybrid.

Yeah that's not possible. 

[J Francho]

On 4/25/2021 at 12:46 PM, CrankFate said:

An old timer once told me that he knew a guy that caught a “wallagen” which is a walleye muskellunge hybrid.

I think you bit on a fish story, unless he was referring to the merp.

[CrankFate]

4 hours ago, ArthurLK11 said:

Got some pictures? I think Suwannee are the coolest looking black bass species. I've never heard of them being in ponds though, just rivers. 

Yeah that's not possible. 

I know ???

Still a great story teller though.

4 hours ago, J Francho said:

I think you bit on a fish story, unless he was referring to the merp.

what is that?

[J Francho]

A deformed walleye named Merp.

[12poundbass]

On 4/20/2021 at 8:06 PM, MIbassyaker said:

 

I discovered just recently that one little lake that I thought had a lot of rock bass, actually has a lot of warmouth. I had never looked very closely at them until I caught one that was really dark, took a pic, and looked it up when I got home.  Since then, every little sunfish I have caught at that same lake has been  a warmouth, making me think all the previous ones were too.

My lake is loaded with warmouth. My son was catching them left and right the first spring we were here and I thought they were bluegill, it wasn’t until he caught and big one and brought it close to me I noticed the mouth and I knew it wasn’t a bluegill. I then researched and realized it was a warmouth! 
 

Those little guys are crazy aggressive! There’s one spot we always go to that has a bunch of wood and we pitch to it and almost always got decent bass. The last year it was almost all warmouth hitting our 3/0 EWG T-rigged rage lures. 

[OCdockskipper]

11 hours ago, ArthurLK11 said:

Got some pictures? I think Suwannee are the coolest looking black bass species. I've never heard of them being in ponds though, just rivers. 

 

No, I didn't take any pictures, I will though the next time I am there.

 

The pond (3 acres) is just a portion of a small creek that runs from the property in Georgia into Florida (just north of Tallahassee).  I was told the previous owner installed the dam about a decade or so ago.  While it is a pond, the water is typically still flowing into the pond & out of the spillway most of the time, so much of the characteristics of a river are still present.

[ArthurLK11]

10 hours ago, OCdockskipper said:

 

No, I didn't take any pictures, I will though the next time I am there.

 

The pond (3 acres) is just a portion of a small creek that runs from the property in Georgia into Florida (just north of Tallahassee).  I was told the previous owner installed the dam about a decade or so ago.  While it is a pond, the water is typically still flowing into the pond & out of the spillway most of the time, so much of the characteristics of a river are still present.

Awesome. I have yet to catch one of those and it wasn't for a lack of trying. Two of my friends and I spent two days in December fishing the Suwannee River in Florida. The fishing was awful. I only caught one largemouth and lost a really big Suwannee. It came up for a second then peeled drag and wrapped me up around some brush. Maybe next time.