# A Rare Fish Caught!!!



## sharpshooter25 (Oct 2, 2007)

So I took my son, dog, and cousin fishing with me the other day. We went down on the river to hopefully catch some tasty fish. So, we get to our spot and start fishing and the first fish of the day was a nice sized cat fish. My boy could barely hold it up.









My son with the big cat

The second fish of the day was a very rare fish, but I will get to that later.

So we continue to fish and there are toads hopping all over the place. My boy first catches one about the size of a quarter. He decides to put it in the front pocket of his overalls. Next he catches a big ol' toad, and so he puts him in his front pocket. He named him Freddy. Then he catches a small one, and puts it in his front pocket. Then he catches a water snake, and I caught him trying to put it in his front pocket but told him that mom would kill me if I let him bring that home. He brought those toads home to be his pets. Mom was really surprised when he pulled that big ol' toad out of his overalls to show her. hahaha He had a blast playing with his toads all day.









Putting the big toad in his pocket









The big toad and the little toad

We caught some other smaller channel cats, and some small mouth for the frying pan, and then called it a day.









Smallie

Now back to the rare fish. So this fish hits the line, and I was thinking it was another cat fish at first, but it sure fought really well. When the fish was finally to the shore, my cousin and I both looked at it and wondered what it was. We had never seen one before, so I decided to snap some pictures, get it back in the water since I didn't know if I could keep it or not, and send the pictures to a friend of mine who shares an office building with a Utah Wildlife Biologist to show him. Unfortunately the biologist was not in the office, but my friend calls me back and tells me that he was looking at native fish of utah, and he said it looked like a blue headed sucker fish.

So thinking that is what it was, I didn't think to investigate it anymore. Well, today my friend calls me because he was finally able to show that biologist the picture. And he tells me that when he showed him, his eyes got big and he said, "That is not a blue headed sucker fish. Please tell me he released the fish." He told him that we had, and the biologist tells him that what we caught was a Colorado Pikeminnow.

I guess this is on the endangered species list, and is very rare but they can get up to 6 feet in length, and weigh up to 100 lbs. It mostly resides in the Colorado Green River, but it has been known to be caught in different parts of Utah. So a once in a lifetime fish. I guess I am pretty lucky. Rest assured it was released just fine, and he was caught on a rapala. Here are the pictures.


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## blueboy22 (Sep 30, 2007)

What a great day for you and your Boy.


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## bowgy (Oct 10, 2007)

Wait..... there's a fish with "minnow" in its name and it can get up to 6 feet in length? That just doesn't sound right :?  

Congrats on the fishing.


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## LOAH (Sep 29, 2007)

Way cool! Good job letting it go, especially since you weren't sure what you were holding. I bet that biologist was very surprised.


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## stimmie78 (Dec 8, 2007)

My brother has caught one of those pikeminnows.... say's they're good fighters too.


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## tye dye twins (Mar 8, 2011)

Fish of the year IMO!


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## Catherder (Aug 2, 2008)

Cool catch! If you caught that in a tributary that hadn't been known to support a population of them, you may also have made a biologist's day who's working on the endangered fish species. 

Thanks for sharing.


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## silverkitten73 (Sep 20, 2007)

Wow! Cool fish!


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## JERRY (Sep 30, 2007)

8) :O||:


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## wyogoob (Sep 7, 2007)

Wow, that's the 2nd damnest thing I've seen on the UWN.

neat


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## Huge29 (Sep 17, 2007)

Pretty neat! Your son reminds me of the boy on Old Yeller stuffing his pocket full of horny toads.


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## EvilTyeDyeTwin (Aug 9, 2011)

Yeah buddy, great catch.....hard to believe those guys get to be 100lbs! One that big would have broke you off the second it bit....and you would have never known what it was! Guess when I fish places like that and get broken off I will have to blame it on one of those "Monster Minnows".

Thanks for posting and sharing with all of us here on the UWN.


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## Al Hansen (Sep 7, 2007)

Well done.


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## sharpshooter25 (Oct 2, 2007)

Thanks guys, it was fun. I hope to catch another one, but I don't know if I ever will. And yes if it would have been one of those big ones it would have snapped my line and I probably would have thought it was a big cat fish.


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## jer (Jan 16, 2012)

Wonderful catch! Great report sir


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## Narient (Jan 9, 2011)

wyogoob said:


> Wow, that's the 2nd damnest thing I've seen on the UWN.
> 
> neat


Since nobody else asked, what's the 1st damndest thing you've seen on UWN?

Congrats on the awesome prize! There's a story to be telling your grandkids.


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## adamsoa (Oct 29, 2007)

Great fish good job!


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## poiboy (Nov 18, 2010)

What a neat story. It's not everyday that you get to catch something that's endangered.


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## Caddis-n-Cutts (Sep 28, 2007)

Narient said:


> wyogoob said:
> 
> 
> > Wow, that's the 2nd damnest thing I've seen on the UWN.
> ...


I have the same question....


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## arny213 (Jul 17, 2012)

very interesting post because I was in mcall ID last week at Payette lake and ran into quite a few of these guys they were way fun to catch, I remember reading this post earlier and knew right away we were catching pike minnows


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## wyogoob (Sep 7, 2007)

Caddis-n-Cutts said:


> Narient said:
> 
> 
> > wyogoob said:
> ...


It's a long story, a post on the old UWN forum; cigarette butts on the ice at Scofield. The thread went about 14 trillion pages, covering everything; religion, sex, states rights, half of the constitutional admenments, what's the best fish finder, and of course BYU vs Utah State. I think we even covered the important Ford/Chevy debate in that thread.

I was a left-leaning, daisy-sniffing, *******, Wyoming, Catholic, icefishing know-it-all, ex-smoking Forum newbie and I jumped right in the fray. Uh...I didn't last very long. I still have scars.


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## wyogoob (Sep 7, 2007)

This is a great post. I read it and said "huh, those look like squawfish".

Every spring I use to work the Boardman Power Plant spring overhaul near the Columbia River in Oregon. Some great fishing there, wow. The nasty pikeminnows (we called them squawfish, a colloquialism) would come out of the Columbia River and get into the Umatilla River around nearby Hermiston Oregon every spring, following all the spawing fish, especially spawning salmon. You could easily catch them with shad darts or small Mepps spinners. There's been a bounty on them in Oregon for some time. I would catch a dozen or so pikeminnows off the river at my bosses place in Hermiston and his kids would sell them. I think they had to be 7" long to qualify for the $2 reward.

I thought they were fun to catch.

They still have the bounty for Pikeminnows in Oregon. They have a season that coincides with the sportfish-spawing seasons. Now they have to be 9" long and they're worth $4 each: http://www.pikeminnow.org/


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## ibfishing (Jul 25, 2012)

wyogoob said:


> Caddis-n-Cutts said:
> 
> 
> > Narient said:
> ...


I remember that post back in the day - all the debates were over and finalized as i recall, all problems solved.. :O||: only took a year and a few posts...


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## Catherder (Aug 2, 2008)

wyogoob said:


> This is a great post. I read it and said "huh, those look like squawfish".
> 
> Every spring I use to work the Boardman Power Plant spring overhaul near the Columbia River in Oregon. Some great fishing there, wow. The nasty pikeminnows (we called them squawfish, a colloquialism) would come out of the Columbia River and get into the Umatilla River around nearby Hermiston Oregon every spring, following all the spawing fish, especially spawning salmon. You could easily catch them with shad darts or small Mepps spinners. There's been a bounty on them in Oregon for some time. I would catch a dozen or so pikeminnows off the river at my bosses place in Hermiston and his kids would sell them. I think they had to be 7" long to qualify for the $2 reward.
> 
> ...


Those are the squawfish/pikeminnow species that lives in the Northwest (Ptychocheilus oregonensis), and yep they are a common pest that has had bounties on them. I've caught a few of those in Idaho. The Colorado river pikeminnow is a very rare subspecies of the Colorado drainage. (Ptychocheilus lucius) Kind of like both the Paiute cutthroat trout and the Bonneville cutt are cutthroats, but one is relatively common and the other extremely rare.



wyogoob said:


> It's a long story, a post on the old UWN forum; cigarette butts on the ice at Scofield. The thread went about 14 trillion pages, covering everything; religion, sex, states rights, half of the constitutional admenments, what's the best fish finder, and of course BYU vs Utah State. I think we even covered the important Ford/Chevy debate in that thread.
> 
> I was a left-leaning, daisy-sniffing, *******, Wyoming, Catholic, icefishing know-it-all, ex-smoking Forum newbie and I jumped right in the fray. Uh...I didn't last very long. I still have scars.


That one must have been before my time. Too bad. That sounded like quite a ride. o-||


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## wyogoob (Sep 7, 2007)

Catherder said:


> .....................
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> 
> ...


Thanks Catherder, all the more reason this is a great catch!

Uh....I thought the squawfish was introduced to the Columbia River drainage.


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