Imagine telling the C.O. checking your license and catch-of-the-day totals that you caught four Stizostedion vitreum, a mixed bag of Micropterus salmoides and Micropterus dolomieui, a couple dandy Esox lucius, or a bucketful of Perca flavescens and Pomoxis nigromaculatis.
Most anglers trying to spit this stuff out would be remanded to speech therapy. When Charles Darwin wrote his revolutionary Origin of Species treatise on evolution, it was perfectly understandable that he studied finches, not fishes.
Since then, fishermen everywhere have tagged fish with more colloquial names - a system as challenging as any scientific nomenclature. A case in point is the walleye, a.k.a. yellow pike, dory, opal eyes, jack salmon, walleyed pike and, more commonly, pickerel.
Anglers, however, are not taxonomists, and misidentifications are common. The lake trout is not a trout at all - it's a char. Bass are really members of the sunfish family, and walleyes are classified with perch.
All this hoopla about the naming of fish is academic because, once anglers are in the boat; a whole new system for naming fish goes into effect. Confusing though it may be (since there are no hard and fast rules), this system is, nevertheless, well-known and widely-practiced by most anglers.
One determining factor in the naming of fish is size. Consider the following guidelines: big fish ("trophy") vs. small fish ("cigar"); landed ("keeper") vs. lost ("trophy"); heavyweight ("hawg") vs. lightweight ("eater").
I've always wondered how "hammer handle" pike become "hammer head" sharks - or do they? - and whether "cigar" walleyes are better smoked than deep fried.
An interesting study in nomenclature comes from the evolution of your fish throughout the course of a day's fishing. Bass start out as "quarry", become "predators" in and around cover, are "fighters" on the line, "smelly, disgusting creatures" in the kitchen sink, and "dinner" on the table.
The old adage that "familiarity breeds contempt" does not apply to fish. As anglers learn more about their favorite fish (and catch more of them), certain terms of endearment are occasionally used.
The guy on a Lake Ontario charter is hoping to catch a "salmon", another is 'rigging for "chinooks", a BC trip means chasing "springs", while the derby contestant is stalking "kings".
For a long time, I thought "skamania" was the excitement generated by the opening of trout season. As it turns out, I was chasing "rainbows", and all that misinformation was in my "steelhead". To paraphrase an old cliche, "a fish by any other name would smell as bad".
Unwittingly, we categorize fish as a matter of convenience or to suit our purposes. We have "gamefish", "panfish", and "coarse fish". Then there are "predators", "baitfish", "crayfish" (?), and "scavengers".
Fisheries biologists have cross-bred species in an attempt to re-populate some lakes, but are they raised in a "gene pool”? No. The splake - sorry, "hybrid backcross" - is a good example of how we confuse kids and new anglers. Try to imagine a youngster sorting out how a "tiger musky" or a "whiskered walleye" came into being!
Big, scrappy fish - ones that don't willingly come to the boat or net - change their genetics as fast as they peel line off a reel. A "taker" soon becomes a "good 'un". After a few headshakes it becomes a "brute", maybe even a "wallhanger".
Only when the fish actually comes to boatside can a positive ID be made. "Sheephead !" Baa-aa! If you save the "lucky stones", shouldn't these fish be called "rocks bass”? And, if "drum" is a four-letter word, does that make "rock bass" a two-by-four?
Is the mate of a hard-drinking angler an "alewife”? And, does the boozer catch "redeyes”? What happens if you bury a "pumpkinseed”? Why aren't "black bass" black? Is there a "sucker" born every minute? Do "dogfish" chase "catfish”? Do you have to keep a largemouth bass in a pail to correctly refer to it as a "bucketmouth"?
I really would like to discuss this further, but I am rushing off to a fishin' buddy's place. He interrupted my train of thought to ask, "How was the fishin' at that new lake?”
"Crappie," I answered matter of factly.
"Too bad!" he sympathized. "I caught a couple of dandy silverfish in my bathtub this morning."
"You're kiddin'!" I stammered. "I'll be right over to take some photos to illustrate this article I've been working on!"
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