Mystery Fish, It Runs, It Jumps, It Eats Salmon

Mystery Solved, unfortunately they eat salmon

Update: It may be missing the yellow and black lateral line, but the Doctor was dead right. It puts me at a dilemma, as these critters have a bounty on their head in Oregon, $4 per fish for the first 1000, up to $8 per fish thereafter. They eat baby salmon, lots of them. The bounty is paid for a specific area, but the dollar totals some of those anglers put away is staggering. I guess they were here first, I will leave them be.

I also found a list of species for Cache Creek, among them were steelhead trout. So I have a new goal, catch a steelhead and a salmon from this little brownline treasure.

Mystery fish, slender, yellow and black center strip

Original Post: Last night’s foray into unknown waters yielded an equally unknown fish. Narrow, silver, and  a bottom feeder. I would classify it loosely as a “sucker” but it has a superior mouth, like a trout. Black and yellow lateral line, very distinctive.

Never seen these before, they fought well and ate anything thrown their way.

7 thoughts on “Mystery Fish, It Runs, It Jumps, It Eats Salmon

  1. KBarton10 Post author

    Dave could be on to something, their distribution includes North America and California. Interesting puzzle, I’m looking for a picture of a California version to check the color pattern.

    In any case, my thanks, Dave.

  2. Mark

    That is not a whitefish, it does not have an adipose fin. It looks like a pikeminnow (Ptychocheilus) to me. Definitely in the minnow family (Cyprinidae).

    Mark C, PhD ichthyologist

  3. KBarton10 Post author

    I checked on the dorsal fin this morning. The picture does not show the location because my big hammy hand was in the way.

    It is a small dorsal, set way back – not at midpoint like a trout. I will look up the pikeminnow to see if there is a match. None of the white fish pictures that I found have that distinctive yellow and black lateral decoration.

    Many thanks for the clue, Doc.

  4. Mark

    Hey no problem…..You should tie up some baby salmon flies and try and catch one of the 3 foot long, 15-20 pounders. By the way….if you want to save salmon in the Columbia river basin….dont kill pikeminnows, just remove the dams.

    Mark C (aka trout-bum)

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