Mystery fish caught at Silverwood identification help needed.

[ToadsToadsOnly]

My buddy Danny and I caught these fish at Silverwood Lake today they were foaming in the AM like a school of boiling bass on bait balls. We ended up catching them on crappie jigs sight fishing mid water column. Looks like a Chub of some sort but the fins and mouth are different than Chub pictures I see online these fish were approx 3-5lbs.

I have no clue what these are and no-one at the wood did either. The worker swore it was a carp but the tail, eyes, mouth, fins, and scales are different than carp.







One of the major distinctive characteristics of the fish is the v shaped tail.

Similar to the Bonytail Chub

http://www.arkive.org/bonytail-chub/...ge-G59059.html

For now I am going to call the fish a BARP half bass half carp.

[Jig-Guy]

I have fished Silverwood for years and have never seen these fish. If they are carp their mouth should be on the bottom of their head. I will have to wait for someone else to let us know what these fish are.

[Ifishtoolittle]

It looks like a grass carp subspecies or something of that nature. In any case it's quite obvious that these guys were eating well!

[casting call]

It looks like a grass carp subspecies or something of that nature. In any case it's quite obvious that these guys were eating well!

Id say grass carp too.. but these scales are "oval" instead of a diamond pattern, and grass carp have shorter anal fins.

[DMS]

I think they are buffalo fish
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ictiobus

[cutbait]

Mohave tui chub?

[seal]

Mohave tui chub?

Ding ding ding! But I thought those were close to extinction? So say the environmentalists.

[fishjunky18]

Why would you kill a fish if you don't know what it is? Obviously if you don't know the species, you wouldn't know the regulations in regards to the fish. In this day and age of cameras on everything you could've easily just taken a picture and carefully release the fish, as opposed to killing four of them. Ignorance is not an excuse sir.

[bigminnowfisher]

I am fairly certain you have rather large specimens of hitch (Lavinia exilicauda). As you noted, the peculiarly shaped and sized caudal fin coupled with the upwards pointing terminal mouth and anal fin proportion really offers a positive identification. Interesting what species can travel through the aquaduct, isn't it?

I will have to agree with others, you should never kill or keep species that you cannot identify. When you first killed the fish, did you know whether they were Sacramento splittails, Tui chubs, Arroyo chubs, or California roach? These rough fish species aren't commonly identified by sportfishers, and the awareness needs to be made that despite the lack of sportfishing status, many species of Californian roughfish are protected. It's important that fishermen do not contribute to their diminished population.

Additionally, I highly doubt whether any fish without a labyrinth organ could survive for over an hour out of water. While the fish may have swam away, it does not mean anything in terms of long term survival. I would recommend if you intend on releasing any fish, to NOT allow it to sit out of the water for over an hour. It just makes no sense.

[seal]

Yes I have caught them before, on the fly in Cleghorn. I do not know for sure the species, the tui chub made sense to me but I got no idea!

I would agree keeping fish of an unknown species is not a good idea, but I don't think he hurt the population much and basically nobody is targeting them and they probably taste like complete crap (or carp) so doubt the population is in much danger, unless of course ToadsToadsOnly frequents the lake often.

Reading more on the tui chub there has been a hybrid of the tui and arroyo chub found at the Mohave Forks dam but really that hitch looks like a pretty good match. Soooooooo many species in Silverwood that many have never seen, special place!