Four native fish species. Left to right, what are they?
Answer
Walleye, Burbot, Perch, Pike
The first two were the trickiest. The way the first picture was cropped it could have easily been either a smallmouth or largemouth bass, as many guessed. (We enjoyed this relevant line on the webpage basicbassfish.com: “Basically, if you want to [ID fish], you’ll want to go deeper than skin (scale) deep. This is because scales look different depending on water conditions, light, and how many beers you’ve drank.”)
Only one person – the winner – guessed that the second fish in the lineup was a burbot, aka cusk. To learn more about burbot, check out this column we ran last winter.
This week’s contest winner was David Lemon of Cortland, NY