very pretty looking carp!

A buddy of mine caught this guy on the river in LaCrosse. Snagged it while casting cranks for pike. I'm told this is a smallmouth buffalo? Is this correct?

Anyways, the fish was 31"x23" and calculators put it between 16-18lbs. Pretty darn huge fish if that's the right species, especially since the state record is 20lbs.

Tough to tell from that photo. The mouth on a smallmouth buffalo point down. That one seems to point forward, making me think it might be a bigmouth buffalo. Got any other photos of it?

Nice fish, either way!

Don't really have any that show the fish any other direction or angle. I do agree that it does seem to point forward much more than down, including in the other pictures I've got.

Hopefully, someone with a bit more expertise will chime in. Stillwateraaron, where are you???

I am here.

I am 100% sure Bigmouth!

The Body shape says it all. I remember when I first started going after the "odd" fish. I really had to work at ID. Now with the help of a good friend I can ID them at a glance many times and even in the water. All ID takes time to learn I still carry a cheap sheet on redhorse just in case I get one that looks odd to me. I am always willing to give my input on ID so always feel free to ask.

Aaron
AKA Outdoors4life on any other sites.

hey aaron,

how would you go about catching bigmouths?

the old fly rod hasn't produced much lately

Put in a lot of time!

I have caught one and hooked up 4 or 5 times since on different tactics. The spring is the easiest time to catch them. They seem to filter feed once summer rolls around and nearly anything you throw seems to scare them.

In the spring they are caught on flies and jigs mostly.

As of lately I have had ratso pink and white taken and bread balls under a micro float. As a good friend of mine put it We are lifetime students of fishing!

Still having luck catching buffalos on san juan worms and even megaworms (a giant sized SJW). I typically do well fishing soft hackled wet flies in the summer, swinging them in the current where I find them holding. Caddis pupa nymphs and even a clam pattern will continue to catch fish through the fall.

28" Dogfish that hit on a small bucktail of all things. Pretty sure it's the first roughfish of any sort that I've caught in my 22 years of fishing (well, not counting bullheads).

Thanks, Aaron. I was pretty sure, but I have never seen a bigmouth in person. That makes it tougher

it took me a while to find the carp today, but i got them.

3 pounds (can you say FAT!)


i thought this one was gonna be bigger by the way it fought...

7 pounds


3 pounds


i took a lot of pictures of this fish

5 pounds

this is one of my favorite pictures of a fish i have:




i also got one more but it was very small

Caught this on a skitter pop

Poor carp was missing most of it's upper lip.

LOTWSvirgin where were you fishing? Doesn't look like a river water to me, would love to find a lake with gar.