[#ff0000]Ugh! So close to 12" but not quite. I'm going to have to go with 11.5. You have a 12" perch so this won't affect your ranking at all. [/#ff0000]
Not a species I expected to catch this year. I guess it goes in the “other” category?
That's awesome! Great catch. I always like unexpected species and a 4" fish posted by the current leader. I'm going to have to investigate this species further. Thanks
[#0000FF]Hope you didn't break your rod on that one. And it is a spottail shiner...not an emerald shiner. Lots of them in Willard. [/#0000FF]
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Thanks, I asked a couple of regular Willard Bay guys fishing near me. They weren’t sure. One called it a fox tail shiner. Those little guys kept bumping my line and I had to “twitch” just right to set the hook. And no, no rod damage this time. Heck, not even any emotional damage!
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[#0000ff]Back in the 1980s...well before Willard Bay got gizzard shad...DWR tried several potential forage species. One of them was emerald shiners. But, like most of the other experimental introductions, that species did not "take". However, two of the trial species...log perch and spottail shiners...managed to establish small populations in isolated spots. [/#0000ff]
[#0000ff]The spottail shiners have shown up with greater frequency in the past few years...mostly inside the protected harbors. Anglers have been accidentally snagging them with lures...and ice anglers have caught a few on small ice jigs. I have caught quite a few while tossing a cast net for baby carp...for bait. The shiners are legal to use for bait but I have not done as well with them as I do with chubs or baby carp. Here's a pic of a few I kept for bait last year.
I think your posting the pictures differently than I did. What I do is select the option at the bottom as you scoll dowy to push the post it option. There is a question there about including a photo. Click on that and select from your electronic device and then just load the picture from your library and doing it that way will look small on the post, but you can click on it and it will let you zoom in so you can read the numbers on the scales... I'd be interested on how you posted your pictures, they look better for the posting of a story, but they limit the zooming function needed by the scoring mods... Anyway I hope that helped and wasn't too confusing... Craig asked if I would try giving you an idea of how to post so they can be read for scoring... Nice fish BTW.... Jeff