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Posts: 136
Location: Chicago | and not a good one. My buddy and I headed up to Boot Lake in Wisconsin for 4 days. After a day of fishing we came in at night. On the dock I was shining my led flashlight checking out the fish in the water when I saw a small blue gill and right next to him there was a strange fish. So I went back to the boat and got my buddies minnow net and caught him. After a closer look I realized it was a goby. When I showed it to my buddy he couldn't believe it either. Then later went inside the bar and asked the resort owner if he knew there were gobys in the lake. He had no idea what a goby was. I showed him a pic and he was shocked as well that it came out of Boot lake. The next 2 nights I ended up catching 9 gobys and missing about a half dozen more. This is pretty sad that they are in Northern Wisconsin and knowing that these foreign critters are know for eating fish eggs in natural reproducing lakes. I killed the gobys on the last day of the trip. This is the first time I ever caught a goby, not sure how bad the problem is in Wis but I thought I'd post it.
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 boot lake 006.jpg (170KB - 126 downloads)
boot lake 008.jpg (76KB - 138 downloads)
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Posts: 86
Location: University of Hartford | thats horrible that they are now in an inland water. I wish people were more careful with their bait and draining livewells.
Alex |
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Posts: 419
Location: Appleton, WI | You may be surprised that it possibly may not be a goby, but a sculpin. I believe they look a lot like a goby, but are native species to North America. You often times find them in rocky, swift rivers and streams. But there's also some lake varieties and they may move up shallower in the fall to spawn due to them being a cold water species. There was a great article in In-Fisherman awhile back discussing the sculpin connection to that of other game species such as smallmouth and lakers. They also discussed how the goby imitations that are used for smallmouth on Lake Erie and the Great Lakes could also be used for inland lakes that have sculpin. Maybe we have a fishery biologist on the board here that could maybe verify if it's a goby or a sculpin.
catch ya later,
Krappie |
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Posts: 8856
| We had an issue down here a while back, where some guy or guys were apparenty catching gobies out of lake michigan and using them for bait on our local inland lakes. As you might expect, now those lakes have a very healthy goby population, and the game fish populationss are being devastated because of it.
I'm not sure whether people are stupid or if they'll just do anything to catch a fish, or both. Putting my money on both.
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Posts: 371
Location: Dixon, IL | I think there's at least 20 kind of Sculpins in this county and I see your picture that have black spots on back so it might not be goby but we still watch out for unwanted fishes! |
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Posts: 2024
| Decide for yourselves, but upon further inspection I (personally) think it's a slimy sculpin. Click the picture to bring up more photos.
http://www.fishbase.org/Summary/SpeciesSummary.php?id=4068
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Posts: 496
Location: midwest | I think esox50 is correct. I would say they are definitely sculpin (which would be a native specie in Wisconsin lakes.) |
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Posts: 1504
Location: Oregon | They look like sculpin to me.
RM |
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Posts: 136
Location: Chicago | Sorry everyone. I should know my fish a little better. The only goby I've seen in person was at Ed Shirleys bait shop in a test tube. I thought for sure those were gobys. I can hear it now, Fred Sanford saying " You big dummy..." |
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Posts: 556
| I caught some of those off a dock fishing in Mercer Wi. wasn't sure what they were but they were definately the same thing you caught. Glad to know they are nothing foreign to the wisconsin lakes. Hope the musky and walleye like them. |
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Posts: 743
| I would say they do. If I remember my trout fishing days muddler minnows were sculpin imitations. If trout like em I would bet eyes and muskies would also. |
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Posts: 2894
Location: Yahara River Chain | Yup sculpins as a kid I would find them in our local trout stream under the rocks. I would catch them and bring them home and place them in a bowl. They wouldn't last long as they must need cold fresh water.
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Posts: 3242
Location: Racine, Wi | It's good that you at least had the concern to try and catch and identify them. They look like sculpins by the picture, but tough to say as I've never seen a gobie or a sculpin that I know of. Next time, maybe contact a DNR official and bring the fish to them for identification as they would be able to ID them and if it was an invasive species, they would at least be able to look into it. If not, then at least they would know.
Those are some chubbie little dudes. |
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Posts: 999
| Great post! It's nice to hear and read that others are being aware of whats going on around their lakes. I now know what a sculpin is! I think i've seen caught them while trout fishing as a kid in Oconto Co.
Mr Musky |
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Posts: 198
| Looks like scuplin.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=sculpin&aq=1&oq=scuplin |
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Posts: 724
Location: Southern W.Va. | I have sculpins in the creek in front of my home here in W.Va., looks like the same fish to me. Best smallmouth bait that I know of but are hard to collect .
For what it's worth
Mauser |
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Posts: 2024
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The image on the right is very similar (though from a different angle) to the pics Rob provided. Disaster (hopefully) averted. |
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Posts: 16632
Location: The desert | No doubt a Sculpin. Several different types, hard to tell them all apart but I'd say that is Cottus bairdii (aka mottled sculpin) along with a few Cottus carolinae (banded sculpin). Very cool fish! Too bad you killed them, maybe next time contact the DNR before killing them, especially if you are unsure of what type of species.
Edited by Pointerpride102 10/18/2008 2:10 PM
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