White Perch

[bndhunter]

Has anyone ever seen or caught a white perch here in Montana? I caught a small fish at Fort Peck last weekend and from all my searches the pics and descriptions of a white perch fit what I caught. However I can't seem to find any information that shows them being in any Montana waters.

[mt.redneck]

could it have been a white bass? I know there are supposed to be some in that area of the state

[pike_fisherman]

White bass is the only thing that it could have been.  100% positive.

[ClearCreek]

The closest white perch to Montana would be in Nebraska.  Better hope it was a white bass; they look a lot alike.  White perch can overpopulate waters fairly easily.  You don't want them in Montana.

ClearCreek

[oldschoolben]

white bass can over populate as well they are fun to catch tho used to catch them while i was in the army would catch a hundred of them just about ever time i went out fish and game finally had to poison the lake

[weigand]

picture?

[Jig like a spider monkey!]

Yellow perch very rarely have a "blue phase" ...  It's genetic (kind of like being albino, but not the same)...  Very similar to why some snow geese are "blues" instead of white. 

[Jig like a spider monkey!]

I'm not saying that's what it was, but might be a possibility...  There's a few pics of such a thing on google....  Check it out and let us know if that's similar to what you caught?  Do you have a picture of it?

[bndhunter]

Unfortunately I didn't have my camera with me at the time. My first thought was that it was a white bass but it didn't have any of the darker horizontal lines that a white bass is supposed to have. I guess it could still be a white bass but even those are supposedly only in the  Missouri river below the Fort Peck Dam. Of all the pictures I have looked at via the internet trying to identify it the white perch is the only one that really matched it.

[double_a85]

How about a young freshwater drum?

[Cornbread]

How about a young freshwater drum?

The little ones look a lot like a white bass with no stripes I wonder if that is what it was?

[pike_fisherman]

Good call CornBread.  Freshwater drum never even crossed my mind.

[Jig like a spider monkey!]

The little ones look a lot like a white bass with no stripes I wonder if that is what it was?

(Image removed from quote.)

I bet you're right!

[mt.redneck]

I forgot about freshwater drum also, makes more sense then white bass.  how could I forget about a fish 

[ClearCreek]

Freshwater drum and white bass are easy to tell apart.  Just look at their tail.  White bass have a forked tail while drum have a rounded tail or has a slight projection to the rear - kind of the opposite of a forked tail.

ClearCreek 

[ciscokid]

I agree w/double_a85, that the fish could be a freshwater drum. They are native to MT in the Marias, Yellowstone and Missouri (including Ft. Peck). White perch are native to the Atlantic coast and found in the Great Lakes. Clear Creek posts that the closest white perch would be in Nebraska. True, they were introduced there in 1964. White bass are native to the eastern US but have been introduced widely to many other states, including Lake Sakakawea in ND. Access is therefore possible to the Yellowstone and Missouri up to Ft Peck dam. In recent years, there has only been 12 reports of white bass in MT, all from the lower Missouri and Yellowstone. I cast my vote for the fish being a drum (also known as a "sheepshead").

[Baconator]

Freshwater drum and white bass are easy to tell apart.  Just look at their tail.  White bass have a forked tail while drum have a rounded tail or has a slight projection to the rear - kind of the opposite of a forked tail.

ClearCreek

Easy to tell apart for people that have them and have seen them... Most of us here haven't seen either one.

[ClearCreek]

Easy to tell apart for people that have them and have seen them... Most of us here haven't seen either one.

Baconator:

That is why I posted that info.  Even if you have never seen either of them and you would have one of each of those species laying side by side you could tell the difference just by looking at the tails, you would not have to see any other part of fish, notice the color, stripes or any of that.   Pretty easy actually.

ClearCreek

[Baconator]

Again, easy if you have access to them and have seen them. We're talking about 2 species that rarely if ever occur here. Doubtful we could ever have a side to side comparison.
 A picture would have so helpful here!

[mt.redneck]

in my experience I have noticed that most people have a hard time identifying fish that they don't fish for very often. I remember a couple guys debating on the Madison if the fish they caught was a whitefish or a brown trout...... and these fish look almost nothing alike    I was standing right next to a guy that thought w badger mount was a wolverine and this was a labeled mount in a museum in Helena.... lots of people have a hard time identifying animals and fish it seems like, kind of sad really.......

[bndhunter]

I really wish I could have gotten a pic. However it definitely was not a drum, not only was the tail forked but he mouth was more what you see on a bass or crappie and the dorsal fin had pretty heavy spines to it. It kind of looks like I might not find out what it was for sure unless I can manage to catch another one and either keep it or get a good pic.

[JayHelfrich]

Did it look like this?



There are "blue" color phases of the yellow perch.

Jay

[pike_fisherman]

I would say with heavy spines it was a white bass.

[mt.redneck]

It is hard to say without a pic as a lot of stuff looks very similar

[vicster]

My vote would also be for a drum.  They are thick in the Missouri from Moroni dam on down.  Similar body shape to a white bass, no stripes, very common....

[Bigskyokie]

mt.redneck is right about guys who catch fish they aren't familiar with.  As a guy who spends summers in Montana and winters in Oklahoma, I have seen it both ways.  Friends from Oklahoma will catch both rainbows and browns for a week when they come to Montana with me and still not know the difference between the two.  Several winters ago in Oklahoma, a guy came over to us and said that he had three of the strangest crappie he had ever seen.  We laughed pretty good when he showed us the fish.  They were rainbow trout.  OKC had a kids' trout derby in a community swimming pool.  The uncaught fish had been taken to the city lake.  How that guy could think that a rainbow could be a crappie???

[ClearCreek]

mt.redneck is right about guys who catch fish they aren't familiar with.  As a guy who spends summers in Montana and winters in Oklahoma, I have seen it both ways.  Friends from Oklahoma will catch both rainbows and browns for a week when they come to Montana with me and still not know the difference between the two.  Several winters ago in Oklahoma, a guy came over to us and said that he had three of the strangest crappie he had ever seen.  We laughed pretty good when he showed us the fish.  They were rainbow trout.  OKC had a kids' trout derby in a community swimming pool.  The uncaught fish had been taken to the city lake.  How that guy could think that a rainbow could be a crappie???

bigsky -

No surprise here.  I have seen a lot of anglers misidentify fish that you would think everyone should know.  Fact is many anglers are not very good at identifying fish.  A number of years ago Alberta thought about making anglers pass a fish identification test before they could obtain a license to harvest fish, anglers could catch and release until they passed the test, but would only be able to harvest fish after becoming proficient in identifying what they were catching.  They had to abandon the thought after giving the Fish Identification test to a group of anglers.  What they found out was most anglers routinely misidentify their catch.  Sad but true.

ClearCreek 



 

[Bits]

Miss-identifying fish seems to be rampant--was snagging for paddlefish on the Missouri last year, a guy was fishing down from me & was pulling in what looked like Walleye from where I was standing--I finally went over to take a look, and saw he was catching Sauger--he told me they were Walleye & not Sauger--I had the fishing regs' pamphlet with
me and showed him the picts & explained the difference--he had caught 2 or 3, and had them in a bucket, still alive--I mentioned to him the limit was 1 per day and he didn't seem to want to throw them back, but finally did after I mentioned that the Warden cruised thru the area, quite often!
Turned out his buddy fishing with him was equally miss-informed on identification--they didn't seem to know that the regs' pamphlet had actual picts in it of common fish in Montana--
I later heard that the Walleyes were biting good in that section of the Missouri! Only saw 1 caught while I was there for 2 days--maybe they started biting after I had left??!!


 

[NateZ]

I thought I would chime in because the description is very similar to the utah chub that have been showing up lately. Some of my spots at Ennis lake are inundated with them now. Supposedly they aren't supposed to be anywhere near Fort Peck yet but only a matter of time. I didn't know what to think when I started catching these but the description is quite similar.

[Tacojuan]

Miss-identifying fish seems to be rampant--was snagging for paddlefish on the Missouri last year, a guy was fishing down from me & was pulling in what looked like Walleye from where I was standing--I finally went over to take a look, and saw he was catching Sauger--he told me they were Walleye & not Sauger--I had the fishing regs' pamphlet with
me and showed him the picts & explained the difference--he had caught 2 or 3, and had them in a bucket, still alive--I mentioned to him the limit was 1 per day and he didn't seem to want to throw them back, but finally did after I mentioned that the Warden cruised thru the area, quite often!
Turned out his buddy fishing with him was equally miss-informed on identification--they didn't seem to know that the regs' pamphlet had actual picts in it of common fish in Montana--
I later heard that the Walleyes were biting good in that section of the Missouri! Only saw 1 caught while I was there for 2 days--maybe they started biting after I had left??!!


 

Funny story I've seen the walleye sauger thing get mixed up quite a bit and I had a guy swear up and down to me that he caught an arctic greyling on the lower stone because of the back fin. Realistically he caught a drum, which I tried to explain to him but he insisted I didn't know what I'm talking about. If you really want to confuse a guy try to get him to tell you the difference between a pallid and shovel nose sturgeon when he has a shovelnose on his stringer, absolutely clueless.