Hi everyone,
My kids and I recently caught a few fish that we can't ID and I'm hoping you old pros could help us out
The first one was caught in the St-Laurence river near Cornwall. Someone there told us it was a chub, however we've seen different looking fish also called chubs, so we don't know what to call it.
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The second one is a sucker, but again not sure which kind it is.
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The third was caught in the same spot. It's nice and silvery, but it seems some of the scales are a greenish-brown.
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The fourth was also caught at the same spot and is what we have always known as a chub, but now we don't know.
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Any insight would be greatly appreciated!
Alright let me take a stab at these with my 2 cents.
The first fish looks like a striped shiner. It looks like a common shiner, but it lacks scale crowding between the head and dorsal fin.
The second fish is a white sucker. Note the small scales. Redhorse have larger scales.
The third fish is a common shiner. You can notice the raised lateral line scales and the crowding of the scales behind the head.
The last fish is my nemesis, the creek chub
. A good way to tell is the dark spot at the origin of the dorsal fin.
Hope it helps! Feel free to ask more questions
First fish is a Fallfish. The dark crescents at the base of each scale is very strong ID characteristic of the Fallfish. These crescents should be found at the base of every scale from the back to just past the lateral line. The way the fish was held and the angle of the light prevents most of these crescents from showing, but the scales near the nape has very clear dark crescents.
Yes, the second fish is a White Sucker.
The third fish is a Common Shiner. I'm not sure what Michael meant by the "raised lateral line scales", but you can ID this fish by the dipping lateral line (it dips down toward the belly and then rises up again toward the tail), scales along the side that is taller than they are wide, and as you commented, some of the scales are greenish-brown while most of them are silver. These odd scales are distributed randomly along the side, creating a look as if the fish was missing the odd scale here or there. There are no other minnows in Ontario with this characteristics, except for the Striped Shiner occasionally. As Michael indicated, Common Shiner also has crowding of the scales behind the head, while Striped Shiner's scale is not crowded, and the Striped Shiner has faint V-shaped strips on the back if viewed from the top.
The fourth is Creek Chub. Creek Chub has finer scales, a black spot at the anterior base of the dorsal fin, and usually a spot at the base of the tail. The tail spot may be lost in some individuals though. Creek Chubs also has a wide head with a relatively large mouth that extends toward the eye.
Yep, Ken nailed it. Nice gathering of species.
............ and to boot.............. every one of them is legal to use as baitfish. (white sucker being the best for cut-bait in comparison to the others)
Thanks guys, we looked them all up online to learn more about them. It was quite easy catching them, just dropped a small jighead in with a small piece of worm attached and we were pulling them up like crazy...the kids loved it