Baitfish Species

[Flukes]

For sure a great thread. Minnows (true minnows) are difficult to ID correctly.
I also fish for minnows (aiming to get larger specimens for pike bait) and I've got a bunch of tiny Japanese hooks for them (more or less the same size as the two you have shown...maybe even smaller - some hooks are really too small for the bait I am aiming for - slightly larger hooks would result in fewer dropping off the hooks as I pull them out) as well as tiny lead jig-heads. I use a telescopic cane pole (so no reel) that folks in Japan, Taiwan, etc. use for their smaller river fish and put on small quill floats (either fixed or on a slip-rig, again the Japanese style slip-rigs where they use a small, thin, rubber stopper and some slipping hardware that allow you to change float sizes really quickly to allow you to change weight, etc. Usually use a small piece of a power grub or similar but if the fish are picky, some real bait usually does the trick (garden worms, fish, even chicken, beef or pork work well as well).
Never thought too much about taking their photos...but may start thinking about doing so as well....it's pretty neat to have a library of these fish.

[Fossil Fish]

Silver shiner (Notropis photogenis). The largest Notropis species in Ontario and very limited distribution. Most similar to emerald shiner and non-spawning rosyface shiner. Both of those species have a dorsal fin that starts further back compared to the pelvic fin. The silver shiner also has a dark stripe running along the middle of the back and dark crescents between the nostrils that emeralds and rosyfaces lack.

[longfish]

Wow Fossil this thread is awesome...thank you for sharing and educating us all. I had no idea. And yes what a great resource for us all to check back to. Thank you.

Arnie

[Fossil Fish]

First new addition to this topic this year. A long drive yesterday landed me my first Bridle shiner (Notropis bifrenatus)- another species with a pretty limited distribution within Ontario. Similar to the blackchin shiner (on page 4) but lacking the black pigment on the chin. Most similar to the yet-to-be-caught blacknose shiner. The differences are a more blunt snout, a more upturned mouth, a spot at the base of the caudal fin and normally 7 anal fin rays compared to 8 in the blacknose.

[Fossil Fish]

Another longtime target finally checked off yesterday, the Iowa darter (Etheostoma exile). Not as deep-bodied as a rainbow darter and blotches/ stripes on sides that do not wrap around underside. Blotches are not M, W or X shaped as on Johnny or tesselated darters. I'll be going back to this spot next spring to try for a much more colourful spawning male.

[mykola]

Quite the dandy of a dace.

[mykola]

Another dace, fantastic scale pattern.

[Fossil Fish]

Finally something new for this thread. Despite a near province wide distribution - not found around here or further south but potentially anywhere north of here- it took me a long time to track down a lake chub (Couesius plumbeus). I caught a few of these in a creek north of Temiskaming Shores on my annual fall trip this week. They are very tough to tell apart from the northern pearl dace (on page 3 of this thread) with the differences being small but visible barbels at the corners of the mouth on the chub and tiny, almost impossible to see without magnification barbels on the dace, a triangular dorsal fin with a concave rear side on the chub vs. a more rounded fin on the dace and the chub having the origin of the dorsal and pelvic fins roughly in line vs. a dorsal fin origin about an eyeball width further back than the pelvic fin origin on the dace.