Please help identifying fish

Hi,

I apologize for posting this here if it is the completely wrong forum, but I did not find any other forum for i/d of fish.

I will be most grateful if anyone can please id the fish in the pics.

This was caught with shrimp at the Brazos Bend State Park, Old Horseshoe Lake, yesterday. Various onlookers threw out wild guesses like "hybrid between gar and carp" or even "snakehead". The park rangers took their book out but nothing matched and even they were clueless.

One of the park rangers thought it was red drum, but when we compare the pictures, we found that the head seems to be too pointed for a red drum.

The scale was tougher than bass, and normal knife proved inadequate for scaling. However, scale came off with peeler, and it was nowhere near as tough as Gar's.

Flesh was mushy and soft, still uncooked in our freezer, not sure how to cook it unless you guys help

Thanks in advance!

bowfin grennel

grinnel.....good catfish bait

Grinnel. Can't believe the park rangers couldn't tell you what it was.

I wouldnt eat that thing. Tastes kinda like a cross between mud turtle and old coot...

Bowfin, or "Grinnel" if you are from East Texas

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowfin

and yeah, don't eat that.

Lip em Park rangers need to go back to school if they can't identify a GRINNEL(bowfin) for you. Big heavy duty scales covering a catfish like skin. Teeth like a pike. They are in every East Texas lake. Fork used to be full of them, still there. Google them. One of the oldest prehistoric species in the world. Those beady eyed things will shred a spinnerbait!

I would be second guessing my park rangers that I've hired....

I caught one many years ago at Fork. Fought like a monster.

Wow! Thanks guys! I am surprised that I did not know about such a common freshwater fish, but then this shows how much I do not know!

Thank you for your advice on not eating it, but I am going to try I have already turned its flesh to cotton by washing it (some articles on the internet says NOT to wash the meat otherwise it turns mushy like mashed potato). So now I am going to make balls out of the meat and deep fry them!

Make ceveche out of it. Double dare you...

Choupique?

LOL

Park rangers couldn't identify? That's embarrassing..

Place the meat on cardboard, use sea salt - a heavy dose, throw a little bit of Zatarain's on to taste.

Quarter a lemon-don't squeeze, just lay the lemon on its rind in all four corners of the cardboard.

Dice an onion and pile it on anywhere, get a clove of garlic and mince it. Place it as you did the onion. Use a

vegetable oil of some sort and just lightly spritz over the meat.

Cook in oven for 34 minutes @ 300 degrees.
























Take out of the oven, throw away the fish and eat the cardboard.

I use this same exact recipe for duck!

Wow, that's embarrassing that they couldn't even identify it with a book.... more embarrassing that everyone was holding supercomputers with wireless internet in their pockets and no one could identify a native Texas freshwater fish species... I've never actually caught one but do know what a bowfin is lol... I am amazed the number of people who catch drum and such and don't know what they are as well... many of our outdoorsman and parks workers severely lack adequate training on the animals they are interacting with.


My biggest issue here is: If you didn't even know what it was, then what business did you have harvesting it? You don't know bag/size limits on a species you cannot even identify. That's hunting/fishing harvesting taboo 101.

A fun article if you care to learn more:

https://www.tpwmagazine.com/archive/2009/mar/ed_2/index.phtml

Give the guy a break. Its a fricken grinnel.

It is just a bowfin, but Mulholland makes a valid point.

And for all he knew it was a rare and endangered species... he didn't have a clue what it was, so harvesting it is absurdly foolish. You don't shoot it if you can't identify it, and with fish you don't harvest what you don't know is legal. Plain and simple. What exactly makes bowfin a less respectable species than bass? They have been around since T-rexes, show a little respect.

aka "Cypress Trout" in Louisiana and I do have a recipe for it!

That's definitely a Grinnell. Whatever you do, do not try and lip them.

"mudfish, mud pike, dogfish, griddle, grinnel, cypress trout and choupique"

Louisiana is just like Texas, if it ain't delicious enough, just keep making it spicy until it gets delicious enough! haha I never understand how people claim one fish tastes so much better than another... they all taste about the same fried up and sparingly added to little tacos and smothered in hot sauce! Of course some fish are a bit cleaner eating and can stand to have less seasoning... but I'm not certain I've found an animal yet that I couldn't choke down if push came to shove and I was hungry.

I agree it's embarrassing that a ranger of any kind couldn't identify a grinnel. If the shape of the head and teeth weren't enough of a giveaway the non-forked tail should have been. I hate those things. I don't know how many times I've hooked one and thought I had a nice bass only to look in the water and see one of those ugly suckers.

I may unofficially hold the Lake Fork record for this freak. April 1992, 1:30 am, Searcy Creek. 15lbs 13oz. On an 8" blk lizzard and fought like a Tarpon. I've caught around a dozen of them but nothing close to that one.

The real giveaway that it's a bowfin is the black spot on its tail, ones who usually have a black spot are juveniles or males.

Throw it away, if the meats already gone mushy it's bad. It's easy to do with those.

That or the giant continuous dorsal fin...

Or the scaled body with the scaleless head... and the razor sharp teeth. They have very very cool looking skulls for sure, much more intriguing than the carp corpses that dry up around most DFW lakes.

Why would anyone hate an awesome fighting sport fish that can survive horrible low oxygen water just like a gar?

Bowfin get big....not sure on the eating part but can be fun to catch....hate them on cranks because they can absolutelty destroy one!!

They probably make about $8 an hour so I'm sure they aren't given a fish ID certification

Dang ! Good grinnel !

They will destroy a Yellow Magic!

Worst part is having one destroy a frog in a tournament thinking you have an 8lber on....

Funny! Thanks.

That rascal will take a finger off.

Actually all fish that you cannot possess are listed. So as long as he can identify those listed, and knows with 100% certainty its not any of those fish he's good.

If canvasback is the only duck you cannot shoot during duck season, all you have to do is not shoot a canvasback.

Everyone saying that grinnel, choupique (shoe-pick), bowfin, cypress trout, mudfish, etc. isn't good eating doesn't know what they are talking about.

When fishing was tough as a kid and we wanted a fish fry we would set out limb lines in shallow grassy canals with a live perch about 6" under the surface of the water.

We'd just back off a few minutes and wait. It never did take long to have a fish on nearly every hook. With the hook up high you could hear as soon as one was hooked.

We always fileted alive, and put filets in ice water immediately. Fry them like you would fry any other fish and they are quite delicious.

Used to have cousins that would fish for them for their eggs in January. They would keep the fish in their shrimp nets lowered into the water and fish for a week or so until they could bring the females to the dock. We would filet a bunch of the males every day that they were there. I never heard the first person complain.

If you can't keep them alive and ice them down, the meat will get mushy. But mix with some potatoes, green onion and dust with flour and they make great fish balls.

Except that there are no size limits on ducks. There is a size limit on bowfin, and it is an anglers responsibility to identify fish as well as known bag limits and size restrictions/slots on fish. You obviously cannot shoot and then live release migratory birds. That's pineapples to apples comparison because they both have apple in them. No real equality between harvesting fish and harvesting game you shoot, unless we are talking bow "fishing", which should just be called fish hunting... or fish shooting, since hunting usually implied harvesting and consuming meat while most bow "fishermen" just slaughter carp and gar and leave them to rot by a boat ramp.

You are wrong. This isn't a matter of opinion. Harvesting a fish you can't identify is not okay. Much like all of the anglers who think it's okay to not be abel to identify a striper vs. hybrid. vs white bass that game wardens cite every year, it is all on the angler.


Just stop arguing. There is no valid point to make that will defend harvesting a fish you can't identify, and don't know the bag/length limits on.

No, I'm not wrong.

The Outdoor Annual Clearly lists the following freshwater fish with restrictions:

Bass (largemouth, smallmouth, Guadalupe, and spotted).
Bass (striped, hybrid)
Bass, white
Bass Yellow
Catfish (blue, channel, and flatheads)
Crappie
Paddlefish
Gar
Saugeye
Sunfish
Trout
Walleye

Then below this it very clearly states:
"For fishes not listed above, there are NO (with NO in bold print) statewide bag or length limits."


Of course the fisherman would need to refer to lake limits. Bowfin are not mentioned anywhere in the 2014-2015 outdoor annual. Then if the said fisherman is 100% positive his fish is none of those listed above, there is no reason he can't take that fish home.

You are not legally obligated to be able to identify the fish. Is it a good idea, you bet.

You are only legally obligated to make sure it is legal to take home. Period end of story. This is not a matter of opinion.

Thank you sprigsss for explaining something so simply that anyone can understand. I will stick by my original comment. 'Its a fricken Grinnel." And no one including the state of Texas cares.

To be honest I kind of agree with Mulholland. Not everyone can identify the fish with restrictions. So if they take to many crappie or one that is to small it's against the law but they don't know that because they can't identify the fish. So they get a ticket and a lesson.

Had one around 9lbs punching hay grass on Housen during a tourney. When I saw the head come up through the grass I was pissed!!!!

I caught one at lake fork a long time around but I would never eat one.

Have had it happen twice in housen on a frog...

bowfin. ugly critter!

Caught a few 1-inchers in a net guarded by a big one at Fork a long time ago and put 2 in my small aquarium. A week later they were the only fish left. Love to catch one every now and then.