Mystery Fish

[Anylakeanytime]

Alright, I know that it will be hard to identify the fish without a picture, but I thought I would try any way. Three of us in the boat fishing on Lida... all of us have fished our whole lives... and in comes a mystery fish. It was approximately the same shape/mouth...etc. as a smallie, had scales that looked like a carp, but it was grey? It weighed 9 lbs. 1 oz. I know what the following fish are and it wasn't one of them.

Sheephead

Goldeye

Tullibee

I took a picture of it, but haven't used all of the film yet. I will attempt to post a picture when I get it developed.

[Scoot]

Ben,

Did it look like this?

[Anylakeanytime]

Nope, but that too would have made my mystery fish book. I will check around and see if I can find it.

[Anylakeanytime]

It is not on the MN DNR website. I will develop the film and stop by some time this week to show you. I will also post it.

[Cicada]

The grey really makes me think sheephead, but there are buffalo in Lida too. They are a member of the carp family but have a mouth that is in front of the head, not a sucker type mouth. They come in a largemouth and smallmouth versions.

[Scoot]

Maybe it looked more like this?

[INNKEEPER]

Scoot Is that an eelpout(I know that I messed up the spelling)? I caught a fish like that on Crystal on friday and wasn't sure what it was. Does any body eat them?

[zachp]

smarp?

[hawghunter001]

Well I would say it was a Whitefish by that discri[tion They will get up to that 10-13 lb range if im not mistaken on the bottom of the mouth they have twoo small feelers a fish that size they would be about 1/4 inch long great eating fish and Lida has whitefish

[DEADhead]

Here are two excellent sites to identify fish species:

http://www.gen.umn.edu/research/fish/fishes/

http://www.wiscfish.org/fishid/frames.aspx

Your description kind of sounds like a bigmouth buffalo, but then again, the picture will tell a thousand words.

[RK]

Innkeeper -

It was a dogfish. Quite a few of them in Crystal. They're a hoot to catch. Just have to be careful landing them. Scales are sharp, and they have some wicked jaws (don't try to lip them...). Don't know of anyone that eats them. I did used to know an old guy who used them for bait when he ran trap lines though...

Cheers,

Rob Kimm

[Anylakeanytime]

I would opt for the smarp... but I believe the bigmouth buffalo may be the winner. Thanks for the links. The DNR's bigmouth buffalo wasn't grey. I will double-check the picture when it get developed to make sure? As I remember, the mouth looked different than the picture that was on the website, but the rest looked right on.

[BigFloyd]

RK is correct that is a dogfish. My daughter caught one last year, when I landed it she got scared and threw her rod down and said "DAD, I QUIT FISHING FOR TODAY"

[blackdog]

I think Scoot and RK have it right. It is a dogfish, or a Bowfin. The picture that Scoot has is a male bowfin with the spot. Females don't have them. In the spring the male is bright bluegreen and the females are silver. There is a couple of other slang names for them.

[hawghunter001]

ITS A WHITEFISH,the one in the picture is a dogfish but thats not a pic of the mystery fish

[rosie]

i know for a fact that its a sheepshead because 3-4 years ago my brothers and i and one my my moms co-workers were fishing out there for walleyes and i caught a 26 lbs sheepshead and its was gray color and and mouth like a smally now was that a fun battle!!

[Cat Hunter]

I have to agree with Rosie, freshwater Drum also known as a Sheepshead. I've seen a 20 pounder come out of Lake Lida, this was about 20years ago. Back then I use to catch a piss load on the Sheyenne River in West Fargo using plastic swim baits in between huge rocks below the dam. What was so fun was the fact that we caught them like catchin panfish off a dock except these were all over 5 lbs.

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[Cat Hunter]

This is the Oklahoma state record Freshwater Drum at 38 lbs, MN record is over 35 lbs out of the Mighty Miss.

[Anylakeanytime]

Ding ding ding ding!!! That is the one.