Confused - What Was It?

[Jackpine Rob]

My son caught a fish a couple of days ago that I think was some sort of musky or hybrid musky. This beast was around 30" long, and had markings that were actually stripes - vertical bars - that were solid and had very little mottling such as the pictures of the musky that I have found.

The kicker is that I have fished this lake for over 40 years - pulled countless thousands of fish (including a fair number of large northerns) out of it, and have never seen anything like this. The eyes had an orange cast to them, several distinct rows of teeth shaped differently than a northern, the gills looked far different from a northern caught at the same time - we laid them side by side on the floor prior to release, and the fish's overall color had a "greenish" hue to it that was not present on the northern.

I know that no official stocking of any kind has taken place on this lake for years, so I'm thinking this may have been someone's feeble attempt to do a little private stocking. The nearest lake with muskies that I am aware of is over 20 miles away.

The pores on the underside of the jaw were maybe 4 on each side - I was struck by the low number of pores, but neglected to count them. No camera, of course....

[Guest]

It was a DOG Fish

[Lost]

What were the positions of the fins? What did they look like? Was the dorsal fin really long? If so, definitely a bowfin/dogfish.

[The Grebe]

Did it have a rather rounded head that looked like it was armor plated? Dark green on top and the under side of the jaw a kind of greenish white?

Did it have kind of beady eyes, as compared to a pike? Did it have a wrap around fin at the tail section and maybe an orange, or black spot on the tail?

Was it shaped more like a long tube of hamburger, then the aerodynamically shaped esox lusius?

If so , I believe that you caught yourself a very large Pumpkinseed! Just kidding, sounds like a Dogfish.

[MedicineMan]

Here's a link to some info on Bowfins:

http://www.gen.umn.edu/research/fish/fishes/bowfin.html

[Tonka Boy]

Sounds like a Tiger muskie to me. A dogfish looks nothing like a northern. Still confused as you mentioned no muskies present??

[MT Net]

Maybe a variant of a silver pike?

[Jackpine Rob]

I've caught silver pike up in Disappointment Lake, thousands and thousands of northerns with many shapes and color variations, and scooped a few dogfish out of the ditch in front of our house. It wasn't a northern or a bowfin.

When I went to put the net under it, I just assumed it was another slimy northern, until I lifted the net and realized that this was no garden variety slimer.

The most striking thing was the vertical bars and the greenish color.

I was in the Boundary Waters at the time, and have come across a few "exotics", that we assume folks have introduced on their own in order to "improve" the fishing. Various sunfish have been introduced over the years, as have large and smallmouth bass. Rusty crayfish were a present from southern bass fishermen....