39" Buffalo - What's It Weigh?

[JIvers]

I caught this 39" Buffalo (not sure which species) out of the Mississippi River below the Quad Cities in Iowa/Illinois last weekend. It hit a crawler I was fishing above a wing dam, and took about fifteen minutes to boat. Fighting-wise it reminded me of the few large steelhead I have caught more than anything else. 

It taped out to about 39"; below are the best pictures I was able to get under the circumstances. I am guessing a carp length-to-weight ratio chart would give me a good enough idea of what this fish weighed. Does anyone have one handy?

 

[leechlake]

i'm going with 19 pounds

[esoxrocks01]

Looks like you got a black carp there.  Buffalo fish have eyes located near the top of the head, whereas Asian carp, like this beauty, have them near the bottom of their head.  Regardless, that's an awesome fish!

[GeluNumber1]

That's either a grass carp or a black carp. Either way, nice fish - I'd love to add it to my lifelist of fish. Probably between 18 and 22 pounds.

[Stick500]

this is a bigmouth buffalo and they are native to our waters- entirely different species and family from all the carps, which are in the minnow familyy

buffs are in the sucker family, but the bigmouths are filter feeders like bighead and silver carp

 

Edited August 28, 2015 by Stick500
wrong pic

[JIvers]

I did some poking around, and based on the pictures I found my fish in the OP does look more like an Asian black carp than anything else. It does not look like the grass carp commonly stocked in public ponds around here.

I assumed it was some kind of buffalo because it did not have any sort of barbels, so I knew even before I boated it that it was not a common carp. I knew a black Asian carp existed but could not have identified one if it was laying right at my feet...which this one was.