CTFishTalk.com: Help need to identify catch. Scantic River East Windsor - Connecticut Fly Fishing Reports ( CT Fly Fishing Reports ) - A Community Built for Connecticut Fisherman.

Stevius86 · Joined: 12 Apr 2012 Posts: 165 Location: Ellington

I was fishing this morning from 7-11:30am in the Scantic River just under the Stiles Bridge. I caught five fish in which i have never seen. All 5 were small (5-7 in) and were silver with defined scales. I wish i took photos but im to clumsy to bring my phone or camera in the water with me. Does anyone have an idea on what I caught?

small fish (5-7in range)
Silver in color
defined scales
gurgled a little when out of the water removing fly

Thats all I got

SeaDog1 · Joined: 21 Dec 2009 Posts: 2629

Hi,

I'd venture a good guess you caught stream dace.

SeaDog1

Stevius86 · Joined: 12 Apr 2012 Posts: 165 Location: Ellington

my guess was alewives but ive never seen one before personally

Stevius86 · Joined: 12 Apr 2012 Posts: 165 Location: Ellington

You're right SeaDog! i found a good picture of the head with the mouth open. The mouth was definitely the same on what i caught.

WELL THEN, I caught five stream dace this morning. One on an Adams, One on a hopper, and the rest were on a royal wulff

PECo · Joined: 06 Oct 2009 Posts: 5203 Location: Avon, CT

They could be dace or fallfish. Dace tend to be smaller than fallfish. I downloaded a couple of photos from the web. Here's a dace:

Here's a fallfish:

Fallfish are the biggest species of minnow. Their bodies are tubular and they grunt when you have them out of the water. They're very common in Connecticut rivers and streams. I've never caught a dace, but I've caught loads of fallfish.
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Stevius86 · Joined: 12 Apr 2012 Posts: 165 Location: Ellington

hmmmmm then I may have caught Fallfish because they did grunt!

PECo · Joined: 06 Oct 2009 Posts: 5203 Location: Avon, CT

They also tend to bleed a lot when you pull them out of the water. I have no idea why, but they always make a bloody, slimy mess when I unhook them. Here's a big one that I caught in the lower pond at Nod Brook WMA, which flows into the Farmington River, in March:

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Cabinetman · Joined: 08 Aug 2012 Posts: 1 Location: Northern, CT

Damned Dace. I hate the little bugges. They're like underwater mosquitoes and even when there are trout to be had, those Dace are milling around just below the surface ready to take the biggest dry fly I can put on my rig. They are not confined to this area either by any means. I've run into them in the lakes and ponds up in Maine as well. I don't normally see them in cold streams or rivers, however. Because the water is more amenable to a good trout population that the trout are large enough to eat them.

One way to eliminate having them be so hard to unhook is to use barbless hooks. In PA we have to use barbless hooks and as long as you keep tention on the line you'll land each fish. Let some slack in by mistake and you'll lose 'em.

Rome

anointed130 · Posted: Thu Aug 09, 2012 7:55 pm Post subject:

I caught one of those the other night on the Ct river, never knew what it was. Caught a couple a few years ago
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JustinSolak · Joined: 17 Jul 2011 Posts: 245 Location: East Hartford, CT

though the term "dace" is generally used to refer to a number of different small baitfish belonging to the cyprinidae, or minnow and carp, family here in the US, the "common dace" is native to europe and asia.

I may be wrong, but I'm almost positive that the only two species of fish recognized as any sort of "dace" that take residence in CT are the blacknose and longnose dace, which look more like the algae eaters that you see suckin on the glass in the household fish tank

so

Unless someone knows otherwise, you can rest assured that those silvery fish that you pull out of the streams are in fact fallfish.
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klmt · Joined: 17 Dec 2012 Posts: 11

There is no such fish as a "stream dace." There are as mentioned, blacknose dace and longnose dace in CT. However both of these fish reach a maximum size that is still too small to be taken on any fishing equipment other than possibly a huge dace on a size 20 or smaller nymph. Fallfish are a possible candidate for the fish you caught but i would also look up creek chubsuckers.

klmt · Joined: 17 Dec 2012 Posts: 11

my bad, just realized how old this was.

Michael · Joined: 28 Jan 2012 Posts: 3823 Location: Bridgeport

I've caught longnose dace before on small worms in a little stream that also holds golden shiners. The dace I used to catch were no bigger than 4 or 5 inches and didn't grunt. Fallfish is what you caught.

Creek chubs are very aggressive for their size. 2 years ago while fishing the golf course in the spring, one pond was producing creek chub after creek chub for both me and the guy I was with. They were going crazy for a HJ-6 while constantly jerking it.

chud059 · Joined: 29 Mar 2011 Posts: 413 Location: Manchester

footehill pond has those fish also, at the golf course in Hebron on rt 85.

snap fisher777 · Joined: 18 Sep 2011 Posts: 238

dont get me started i see these fish in Salmon Brook river in glastonbury and try to fish them thiking their trout but they were dace or some for of creek chub. they drive me nuts Evil or Very Mad