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| Nick and Colin show off their Pumpkinseed |
After canoeing around a bit we ended up at a little sandbar where Zoe and Colin splashed around and swam while the "Grownups" tried to catch a few fish, we had limited success including a nice smallmouth, but since it was not yet June 15th we could not include that in the quest. Black bass fishing is limited to catch and release between May 15 and June 15 to allow for spawning.
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| Zoe battles a 2.5lbs Smallmouth! |
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| Zoe's fish |
We made our way back to our dock we noticed a school of minnows swimming around, so we tied on some tiny hooks and chopped worms into little pieces and caught this little fish.
Here's where the problems began, we had to figure out what we caught, this quest is a bigger challenge than we could have imagined. So we posted this minnow on our facebook page, on myfishfinder fish forums, and emailed pictures to fish and game biologists.
We keyed it out using the NH freshwater fish guide and Clay determined it was a black nose shiner, the forum guys decided it was a black nose dace and the Fish and Game biologists told us it was a bridle shiner.
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| Fish and Game made this comparison for us, notice the large eye on the Bridle Shiner |
We decided to trust F&G, and read a little about the Bridle Shiner, turns out it was endangered! OH NO we thought we ate an endangered species, so we emailed F&G and offered to turn ourselves in. They decided to take another look at the fish and after comparing our pictures side by side with a bridle shiner they said the eye was too small to be a bridle shiner and told us what we had.
Lake Chub, fish number 21 Couesius plumbeus. These minnows are endangered in Massachussetts but have no status in New Hampshire so we were able to ad it to the quest. We are also very thankful to New Hampshire Fish and Game for their help with this fish ID.
I would be interested to know how the State chose Lake Chub instead of Blacknose Dace. I had just made a video of what I thought was Blacknose Dace just last week and was planning on sharing it when you reached it in the quest. Now I am wondering?
ReplyDeleteThey ruled out dace very quickly because of the blunt nose and large scales. These fish are all so similar and we imagine there will be more debate recognizing the many species of minnows that look almost the same... Thanks for the comment MrRiverjim, we're glad you're paying attention!
ReplyDeleteHow does one prepare a 3" fish for eating?
ReplyDeleteWe made lake chub chowder, total serving size was 1/4 cup... we chopped the fish in half so we each got a bit, we flipped Clay got the head... we'll have the recipe in our book. This was one of the best fish we've eaten!
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