Metro Beach/Huron Point LSC MI

FINALLY! it stopped raining and the wind died down enough to get out and do some fly fishing. Went to Huron Point (Metro Beach) on Lake St Clair MI and got into some decent fish. Tried for pike for a while using a BIG white clouser in the stained water with no luck. Switched to a krystal flash clouser that ive been having pretty good luck at and started picking up Largemouth in and around the rocks. As im bring in the fish they were being followed by several carp hitting em on their sides in an attempt to mate. In addition to 5 largemouth i picked up a carp (fair hooked in the mouth with a clouser) HUH!, a nice rockbass and a white bass, of which shouldnt be there in mass for a another couple weeks. All were caught on a light green, root beer krystal flash clouser.

Sounds like a very fun trip!
I have a couple questions, mostly because its just hard for me to tell for sure from the pictures...(which are great pictures, I really like them a lot!)...Could that carp be a carpsucker?...and could the white bass actually a white perch? I don't even know if there are white perch in LSC...

It really doesn't matter, but I'm always excited to catch new species on fly gear!

David,

Back home they are called several different names such as White Perch, White Bass, White Crappie and Silver Bass. So to answer your question, Yes you are correct they can be classified as White Perch. During the spring of the year we would catch a 5 gallon bucket full of white bass in the same area Greg was fishing and boy did they make one heck of a fish fry. :)

Here I will give you a example how the same fish is called something different in different parts of the country. Greg mention catching a nice Rockbass, well down here in Tennessee or should I say the general south they are called a.k.a Black Perch....dont know why?? Oh!! one more note about rockbass/black perch, they dont even belong to the Bass family they are part of the sunfish family.

Now the picture of the carp looks like a typical Lake St. Clair carp not a sucker.

Here is the definition of White Perch:

White Perch is known as a fish that is related to the bass family of fish and is located in North America. The bass family that the white perch is related to is called the Moronidae. The white perch is notable for being very edible and having a very sweet delectable taste. It has a distinguishable name "white crappie" and is normally found along Great Lakes and Chesapeake Bay areas. The white perch has different colors and it depends on where the fish is located. Color can be light on the sides, but normally gray, dark brown or olive colors. It weights up to 5lbs and 20 inches.

Regional nomenclature for the identical fish species sure muddies the issue. What I meant was the separate (although very closely related) species:
White Bass (Morone chrysops)
White Perch (Morone americana)

The top fish in the picture below is a White Bass, while the bottom is a White Perch. The quick identifier for me is the lack of any obvious horizontal stripes on the White Perch.
Attachment 8266


For the carp or carpsucker...I just thought the scales/head/eyes of fish in the picture more resembled one of these:
Attachment 8267
or

Attachment 8268
I could absolutely be wrong on both counts...again, its difficult to say definitively from the pictures, but these were my first thoughts.

I have caught carpsuckers (river and quillback), but not on fly gear, so that would be cool!
I personally have not caught white perch, but some boatmates on a Lake Erie charter I was on years ago caught some. I got a good look then.

tell me about your set up you were fishing with!

Ive been fishing this lake for years and ive never heard of a carp/sucker. Its just your run of the mill common carp and i beleive its the only type we have up here. As far as the white bass being a white perch, although we do have white perch (very few), i beleive it to be a white bass or silver bass (same thing depending on you area of the country). They typically school off this point in the spring of the year in HUGE groups chasing bait fish to the surface and erupting on them at the same time making the water look like its boiling.

My set up was an 9' 8wt with floating w/f s/a pike/muskie line and about an 8' 10lbs leader..I typically use a 5 wt but for heavy streamers the 8 wt makes short work of em. Nothing speacial, cast it out slow strip in..strike will happen on the pause.

The fish GT171 labels a carp at first I thought was definitely a Quillback Carpsucker...NOT a common carp. There are no barbels on your fish. Common Carp are the only fish that possess two of them.

These fish don't have any barbels:
http://www.dnr.state.oh.us/Home/spec...0/Default.aspx
But after looking at the tail... it's a Big Mouth Buffalo : http://www.dnr.state.oh.us/Home/spec...9/Default.aspx
Common Carp: http://www.dnr.state.oh.us/Home/spec...9/Default.aspx
The last option is the wild common gold fish..which turns up from time to time in the area. http://www.petgoldfish.net/file/a-wild-goldfish.jpg Your fish isn't that.

Both the Big Mouth Buffalo and the Quillback Carpsucker are commom species in Lake St. Clair. Lake St. Clair is probably the most diverse lake in terms of number of species of any lake in North America. It's pure fun because you just never know what you'll find on the end of the line.