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Common name: Yellow perch Scientific name: Perca flavescens (Perca means “dusky”; flavescens means “becoming gold colored”) Appearance: Brown and yellow on the sides, green to olive around the head, yellow perch have spiky fins, forked tails, and long snouts. Distribution: Yellow perch have been stocked extensively throughout North America’s lakes and waterways. Spawning: Yellow perch…

Common Name: White Bass, a.k.a. stripers, white lightning, barfish, striped bass (incorrectly), silver bass, striper, stripe, sandbass and sandy. Scientific Name: Morone chrysops Appearance: White bass resemble a shorter version of striped bass, though they do possess a few distinguishing features. Their bodies are silvery-white, marked by half a dozen or so dark, horizontal lines…

Common name: Walleye, a.k.a. walleyed pike, doré, pike, jackfish, jack, and pickerel (note, however, that the walleye is not a pike, despite the names) Scientific name: Stizostedion vitreum (Stizostedion means “pungent throat” and vitreum means “glassy”, referring to the large eye. Appearance: Walleye have olive to brown bodies with a yellowish underbelly. Their most distinctive…

Common Name: Splake Scientific Name: Salvelinus fontinalis x S. namaycush Appearance: A man-made hybrid of female lake trout and male brook trout produced mainly in hatcheries, splake will exhibit any combination of the characteristics of their parent species. Because of this, hatcheries will often remove a fin from splake before releasing them to aid in…

Common Name: Striped Bass a.k.a. striper, rock, rockfish, striped sea bass, striper bass, linesider, squid hound, greenhead. Scientific Name: Morone saxatilis Appearance: Dark olive to steel blue on top, with with silver sides and a white belly, striped bass get their name from seven to eight dark, horizontal bands that run the length of their…

Common Name: Steelhead Trout Scientific Name: Oncorhynchus mykiss Appearance: A migratory, saltwater strain of rainbow trout, steelheads are generally sleeker in shape and more silver in colorthan regular rainbows. However, once in fresh water, steelies take on the same red-and-pink coloration as their cousins. Between this and thewidespread interbreeding between the two strains in fresh…

Common name: Smallmouth bass, a.k.a. black bass, smallie, redeye, bronzeback, brown bass, brownie. Scientific name: Micropterus dolomieu (Micropterus means “small fin”; dolomieu was named after M. Dolomieu, a French mineralogist. Appearance: A true bass, smallmouths are marked with dark, verticalstripes on greenish scales, with more dark bars around the eyes, radiating backwards. Their cheeks are…

Common Name: Rock Bass, a.k.a. black perch, goggle-eye, rock sunfish, red eye, goggle-eye perch Appearance: Rock Bass have dark, mottled bodies that serve to camouflage them against a rocky backdrop, and rather large eyes adapted for hunting in low light conditions. Scientific Name: Ambloplites rupestris, rupestris meaning “living among rocks.” – like the largemouth bass,…

Common Name: Rainbow Trout Scientific Name: Salmo gairdneri Appearance: Rainbow trout have a heavily spotted, silvery and/or green bodywith a large, unmistakable swath of purple, pink, and blue reflective stripes running towards their squared-off tails. Distribution: Ranging naturally across the northern Pacific between Mexico, Alaska, and East Asia, rainbows have been introudced to lakes and…

Common Name: Pumpkinseed Scientific Name: Lepomis gibbosus, lepomis meaning “scaled gill” cover, and gibbosus meaning “wide margin.” Distribution: Though they’ve been introduced everywhere between the Pacific and Atlantic, pumpkinseed sunfish remain most abundant in their native range, which extends from the southern edge of eastern Canada down the coastline to the Carolinas. Given their oftentimes…