Fished kentucky lake hard the past few days catching well over 100 gills... many nice ones. Occasionally I'd get into some of these very aggressive fish in 2-3 ft. Best I can tell it's a skipjack shad. Never saw them when I lived in texas. Your thoughts?

How long is it ?
Looks Lil like a big shiner

Most 6-8". A few to 10+

I'm pretty sure it's just a big mature adult shiner. Unfortunately I'm not smart enough to post a picture. But if you will search shiner pics you'll see them.

One of our tanks have them in it up to about 8~9". My boy catches them like perch lol

Ok. I wonder if it's one of those deals where it's called different things depending on where you live

Very highly possible !

I buy "crappie minnows" and all my local shops sell is the shiner minnows. If I have some left after a trip of "catching fish out of lakes to stick my tanks" then I dump them in the tank when I'm throwing my stocker fish in.
If I buy a pound of XL shiner minnows then there's usually only 9-12 minnows in it as they are quite large like the one you posted.
I usually only buy the larges during the shiner spawn and throw a pound or 2 in each tank just to help up bait count.

I looked up Skip Jack Shad and your fish looks like one. Reading about them they are also called Tennessee Tarpon. They can get up to 20" in length with the average length of an adult to be 8 to 12".





Side Note: Looks like a regular Texas Shad to me!

Golden Shiner

I catch these in a couple ponds I fish. I was told they are golden shiner

Definitely not a golden shiner. Definitely a skipjack based on the mouth and nose structure.

Eric

Goldeneye herring or "skipjack"
Probably had small teeth?

Caught a few at denison over the
Past decade

Take a couple more pics next time you catch them and make sure you have a picture with the mouth closes. Pretty sure it's a small Golden Shiner. I've caught several over the years.