I assume you hooked the fish in the mouth. When you pulled the hook out, if it was a river carpsucker, you likely would have noticed a nipple on the lower lip. I don't know of many other fish that have that feature, so it likely would have stuck in your mind that something was different. But the snout and mouth of the fish in your photo looks more like a river, same with the dorsal fin.

I think my fish look more like rivers, since the dorsal fins aren't as long as some of the other quillback photos I've seen. My reference points are therefore skewed. But I did not notice any nipple bump on the mouths of these fish. And of all the fish surveys in the region, quillback are the only carpsucker species that have been sampled in the Red R drainage. So using deductive reasoning, I determine the fish I caught were quillbacks, even if the dorsal fins don't match. I wish I had caught a river carpsucker before, so that I'd have a fair reference to compare too.

FYI the Red River drainage consists of the Red River (duh), and major tributaries like the Otter Tail, Bois de Sioux, Red Lake River, both Wild Rices, and Buffalo. They eventually drain into the Hudson Bay. As you know, the Zumbro is in the Mississippi drainage.

I'm rethinking my river carpsucker guess above. I went this morning and caught another fish identical to the fish above. It did NOT have the nipple, so it was a quillback. I'm guessing the fish above was a quillback as well. I'll put pics up in a day or so.

In any case, this was my first (and now 2nd) ever quillback, so that's cool for me.

good deal. It's amazing how different species of fish can look so similar to each other. It's always good to know the distinguishing characteristics of fish to be able to undoubtedly identify a certain fish species, like the nipple protrusion, or a fin ray count. Color or fin length aren't always fool-proof.

so, congratulations on your first two quillback!

I was just thinking.... good thing suckers species don't hybridize!

Nice fish Holmer and congrats!

There is some good info in this thread.

Thanks guys

Quillback, I got to put that one my list.