Mystery Fish on the American - what is this?

[Keith Kaneko]

Hi All,

Our good friend, Joe Shirshac, landed this fish on the American this morning and we are not sure exactly what it is...? Look at it closely and please reply and let us know what this may be.



-Kiene's FS

[Charlie Gonzales]

Ive always know it to be a "Sacramento pike" or squaw fish. The latter was not deemed to be politicaly correct so it was renamed. It is one of the reasons(other than salmon/steelhead) that stripers will never be protected int this area(the squaw fish is native, stripers are not). Im getting this info from a game warden that lives off of Bass lake road which I did some tile work for. He had also said they are more harmful to the salmon/ steelhead than stripers; which is where the sac pike reference comes from,I'm guessing.I've caught them to almost 15lbs and they faught as well as a striper.

[Rob]

Sacramento squawfish. ??
There are also on the Yuba river above the hwy 20 bridge. I landed one on a crawdad pattern that was 25 ''.

http://www.krisweb.com/krisrussian/k...nnow_efish.jpg

[FoothillFlyFisher]

Squaw Fish...

I've caught a few big one's like that in the Kings River above Fresno...

[FoothillFlyFisher]

Squaw Fish...

I've caught a few big one's like that in the Kings River above Fresno...

[Jasonh]

Squawfish...i have caught a couple of those while striper fishing. Landed one about two years ago that went around 9 lbs on the boga, put up a decent fight too.

Jason Hartwick

[Tony Buzolich]

I think it is properly called a "Sacramento Pike Minnow", also know as a squawfish, hardhead, pike, etc.
TONY

[Brad Blancett]

Correct Tony ! Sacramento Pike Minnow or squawfish

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

Some friends came in the shop today and showed us that photo. Thye were floating the river today. They thought it was a carp, but I knew it was not.

In the view finder of a small digital camera it was obvious it was not a carp.

Here it does look like a Sacramento Squaw Fish or Pike.

__________________________________________________ _________

I went all the way up to British Columbia and was on remote lake where I saw some action along the shore. I shut off the outboard upwind and slid into position. I cast a big dry right on these working fish. I got a great take and landed a nice 16" fish.

Oh no.....a Squaw Fish. Those stinky devils followed me all the way up there, I thought.

[KD]

We catch them occasionally in the Delta.

I had a day once in the Delta where I was hooking a lot of them cast after cast. I thought it was very strange to be catching pikeminnow in the area as I'd never caught them in that location before. As i proceeded moving along the edge I soon quit catching pikeminnow and started catching some stripers. And then more stripers. And then some big ones. And so on. I soon saw some distinct spawning activity.

As it turned out the pikeminnow were staging down current of a large group of spawning stripers. The stripers were up in a cut/strong current spawning and the pikeminnows were lined up feeding on the spawn flowing down current .

The stripers were stacked in that area for a week. I haven't seen this spawning activity in this area since and I haven't caught pikeminnow in that area since.