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Any Ideas?



Thanks

Matt

Any clue's on whether it is marine or freshwater ?
(guessing that is probably freshwater by the debris in the water and twigs in the foreground)
Lake or river, fast or slow water flow.
Approx size if known.

Not sure. I'm having trouble interpreting its nose/mouth. My wild guess is a gudgeon, Gobio gobio?

You'll need to get a photo from the side. That can be pretty much anything.

Suckermouth wrote:Not sure. I'm having trouble interpreting its nose/mouth. My wild guess is a gudgeon, Gobio gobio?

Totally the wrong shape for a gudgeon which are torpedo shaped, this fish's doesnt look to have the roach/rudd/bream shape either (head profile is too broad looking from this angle).
Neither does it look like a perch, pike or zander either.

is it a juvenile trout or salmon with a twisted mouth? Perhaps it was hooked/ caught.

It was in a freshwater lake near my house in a local country park where I regularly go mountain biking. This lake is in a pine forest that is growing on a vast range sand dunes.
The fish was in the shallows and not moving, exactly as it is seen here.
Just off the shore was a massive shoal of I think were roach, consisting of at least 800-1000 fish clearly visible in the crystal clear water that were circling in the deeper water about 8ft from the bank.
The fish had an underslung mouth and was sitting on its fins in the water I assume waiting for the shoal to move away.
As this is a protected lake the fish were completely relaxed and in fact I reached down and stroked the side of this fish and thought about scooping him up to get a better picture as Mike suggested which I could have done easily.
I didn't as it was the most amazing thing I have ever seen to be honest, these fish did not perceive humans as any threat whatsoever and I preferred to keep it that way.

Edit: As described above there is no way this fish has been hooked as the lake is very well protected and is completely natural.
As far as I can remember there is no inlet or outlet to this lake but two sides are thick woodland and brambles so there may be a stream on the other side, but I doubt it very much as it is situated in a range of sand dunes that remain very dry even in the pissing rain, which is why the woods is ideal for mountain biking.

It had large eyes compared to it's head and a vaguely striped (Vertically) pattern of brown and silvery cream.

It had large eyes compared to it's head and a vaguely striped (Vertically) pattern of brown and silvery cream.

It almost sounds like a young bass of some sort. Never having been to the UK, I can't make even a reasonable guess about what is and isn't native, so I don't know if a bass is even a reasonable guess. A walleye is another North American fish that could fit you descriptions (and, as a juvenile, the bodyshape in the picture), I think, but, again, I really have no clue if it is native to the British Isles.

By the description alone, I'd say it's Sander lucioperca, pike pearch aka Zander (which is also the German name). Nice food fish, not technically native, but introduced in large parts of the country.

Of course, that's only a guess.

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Mats

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=htt ... CA8Q9QEwAw

Shows the only dorsal view I've been able to find of a Zander, but it's probably still a better guess than any of mine.

It had no anal fin and had a deffinate bottom feeder mouth similar to Satanoperca, it's a real mystery to me.

Definitely not a zander or a perch, as they have two dorsal fins.

Definitely not a US bass either, as these are not established in the UK, and also have two dorsal fins.

How big was it Matt?

I agree with Suckermouth: Looks like a skinny Gobio Gobio to me. The underslung mouth and the way it sits on the bottom all fits. Caudal fin is also the right shape. The funny headshape might be caused by some injury which also explains why it is so thin and lethargic.

How big is it? Stickleback?

http://web.ukonline.co.uk/aquarium/page ... eback.html

The stickleback has the dorsal fin very far back on the body, doesn't match the fish in the picture.

And yeah, "Doh!" on the two dorsal fins of the Perch/Pike-perch!

--
Mats

I would say it is a Gudgeon.

I have Photo Shopped the image to try and get a better look at the fish, although it has ended up a little small, checking out the body patterning it has the marbled coloring similar to the Gudgeon.

Ian

Gudgeon seems the most likely candidate but a very undernourished one, not surprising with the amount of roach in there.

Racoll- it was about 5 inches SL

This sight has really made me interested in the local and native fish which I have never paid attention too since I was about 12-14 when we used to catch bullheads in the local river, we always put them back mind, straight away.

Amazingly we used to catch them with our hands not nets, a feat I could no way repeat nowadays!

Sadly last time I was at that particular river I couldn't find any bullheads at all in the particular section we used to catch them in, you would only find them on one particular bend in the river.
This is I think because the place is a proper tourist magnet now, esp for Mountain bikers, whereas before it was overgrown and only me and my mates would go there really.

Timberwolf and myself share the same native and introduced species as we both live on major tributaries of, ( myself) or the main Columbia River(Timberwolf) and we have a few small species which resemble this fish but nothing identical. When I looked up Gobio gobio, it looked like that was the best candidate.

Matt, maybe you should stick a small aquarium net in your day pack the next time you go biking along this path? Catch one and get a good profile shot of the fish. Probably was one of those rare opportunities to see so many within reach. All fishing is like that. "You should have been here yesterday, they were really hitting", a refrain I have heard so many times.

its a mystery fish alright...
A 5" gudgeon is a good size for a gudgeon! Its behaviour is odd - to be able to get close enough to such a small fish to possibly stroke it! I wonder if this fish was old, sick, etc, which might also explain why it was so thin. I've caught them on a rod and line in canals and rivers when nothing else was taking the bait. I saw Gudgeon for sale last year, I can't remember how much but they weren't cheap.

Gudgeon is the best suggested so far, however this fish had a more underslung mouth than the pics of gudgeons I have seen on t'internet.

A 5" gudgeon would be an absolute whopper, and as wrasse said, may account for its peculiar behaviour.

If you use Firefox, you can open the image in a new tab and repeatedly press Ctrl and + to zoom in on the image.

Barbel have more underslung mouths, but that seems unlikely in a Welsh lake with no stocking for anglers.

Gudgeon make pretty good aquarium fishes too!

Probably a gudgeon as said before, has the body shape and could possibly have been a juvenile barbel but that is unlikely in a lake if it hasnt been stocked specifically for anglers unless it had got in from a river. Not much else it could be but it looks very emaciated and if it let you touch it without reacting then there was probably something wrong with it because NO wild fish would ever let you do that unless they had been "tamed" with regular contact from humans and food.

I'd say gudgeon have pretty underslung mouths, and the colour pattern is consistent with one of the many that gudgeon can produce (depending on mood/background etc), but the eyes look wrong to me. 5" is big, but not unattainable for gudgeon. I think the "strange" mouth shape everyone's commented on is actually some dark debris below the fish.

Matt's said it definitely doesn't have an adipose fin, but to me this looks more like a salmonid than a cyprinid- I'm pretty sure it's not a perciform based on the dorsal and caudal fins.

Carp37 wrote:but to me this looks more like a salmonid than a cyprinid

I thought that too, but even on full zoom I can't see an adipose fin. Doesn't mean that it isn't there though.

Seriously, the photo doesn't allow identification of that fish beyond that it appear to be some sort of cypriniform. Also, I think you guys are confusing crud on the bottom with parts of the fish's head.

I believe Mike is correct but why not try eh?

The bit at the front is definately a bit of crap on the bottom.
It had an underslung mouth, very, definately a bottom dweller and feeder.
It had no Adipose fin.
The picture is crap because funnily enough I didn't have a high res underwater camera on me while I was out mountain biking with my kids, it was the best I could do with the stuff I had.
I didn't want to scoop it out as it was such a nice thing to see and scooping it out may have spoiled the chance of me or someone else seeing it again.