RI Mystery Fish ID Help Request
Started by
Guest_CharlesA_*
, Aug 20 2012 07:09 PM
10 replies to this topic
#1 Guest_CharlesA_*
Posted 20 August 2012 - 07:09 PM
For the past three weeks, this fish has eluded both identification and capture by myself and numerous others. It is located in a small tidepool at the northern end of 3rd Beach in Middletown, RI.
The fish is not even quite an inch long.
The photos show both the regular shot and the blurrier close-ups.
Thank you immensly in advance for any thoughts.
Banded drum perhaps?
Two habitat shots.
Thank you again.
The fish is not even quite an inch long.
The photos show both the regular shot and the blurrier close-ups.
Thank you immensly in advance for any thoughts.
Banded drum perhaps?
Two habitat shots.
Thank you again.
#5 Guest_CharlesA_*
Posted 27 August 2012 - 10:34 AM
Hi Everyone,
Thank you very much for responding.
The other two fish in the photo are juvenile black sea bass.
The shell is a knobbed whelk (possibly a channeled whelk.)
I have e-mailed the local fish folks at RI Department of Enviromental Management, and they have answered they thought this mystery fish might be a banded rudderfish. So in both the case of the sheephead minnow and the rudderfish thoughts- I'm not sure. We catch a fair amount of sheepshead minnows in our seine, and this isn't one- by now this fish has grown and is almost the size of a sheepheads minnow. I could provide a photo of one that we caught. This fish has lots of yellow and the sheepshead minnows (at least in our area don't have this yellow.)
In the case of the banded rudderfish, again we see lots along swimmer's lines on the beaches and under buoys, lobster pot markers, etc- and this fish is not like a rudderfish at all, it has a different shape and acts differently- darts under the rock ledges for cover vs. fusiform open water swimmer.
DEM suggested I catch it, and I have tried, to no avail.
So potentially back to the drawing board...
Thanks again.
#8 Guest_FirstChAoS_*
Posted 28 August 2012 - 04:12 AM
I agree with mummichog on that it is a night sergeant, I did not realize they showed up that far north
It's cool they stray to new england. One of the fish I wanted to see in the bcarribean and didn't was a night sergeant. (I did see a sergeant major though, the night sergeant would have complemented it nicely as they look like its photo negative).
Sergeant Majors, Night Sergeants, Soldierfish, Grunts, Pilot Fish, Grenadiers, Warrior Darters, Warpaint Shiners, Warmouth Sunfish, Sword Fish, Shield Darters. Should the militarization of fish be a worry?
#9 Guest_CharlesA_*
Posted 28 August 2012 - 11:09 AM
This is great. Thank everyone for sticking with this fish and concluding the night sergeant major.
This fish should wise-up and just let itself get caught in advance of the first cold stun water soon. It was still in the same spot as of Sunday. At least 28-days now. Serious effort to catch the this weekend.
This fish should wise-up and just let itself get caught in advance of the first cold stun water soon. It was still in the same spot as of Sunday. At least 28-days now. Serious effort to catch the this weekend.
Reply to this topic
0 user(s) are reading this topic
0 members, 0 guests, 0 anonymous users