Need help to identify a fish caught on Lake Barkely!!

I was back in Eddy Creek Sunday morning throwing a spinnerbait into shallow cover.When out of no where this fish approx. 40in long slammed my spinnerbait. I caught this fish and it had a round body, white belly, had small whiskers from the top of its mouth like a catfish, it had scales that were nice size scales,it was a silverish gold color on the top of its back, it weighed approx. 12-15 lbs, and most of all it had a mouthfull wicked looking teeth. Please help me identify this fish, it is driving me crazy!!!

Sounds like a gar to me Mike. Did it have a long nose that had all the teeth.

Sound to me like a grinnel sorry about the spelling.

At first guess, and it may sound silly, but it sounds like an alligator gar/catfish cross.

Elijah Orr
Kentucky Lake Bass Club
Asst. TD
270-354-5285
[email][email protected][/email]

not a long nose but a shorter blunt nose

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON Jul-12-06 AT 07:29PM (EST)[/font][p]Sounds like a grinnel to me but the whiskers are throwing me off.

[url]http://www.landbigfish.com/fish/fish.cfm?ID=71[/url]

Sounds like a bowfin to me, but I don't think they have whiskers.

I have been studying a few pictures of a common carp, they have one or two whiskers on each side of the mouth, and large scales, but not sure about the teeth.

[url]http://lt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karpis[/url]

This address will take you to the pic I am looking at. Maybe if you could give more info on the structure of the mouth or fins maybe?
It's a good possibility we are dealing with a cross.

Elijah Orr
Kentucky Lake Bass Club
Asst. TD
270-354-5285
[email][email protected][/email]

I have seen some gar that have the blunt nose, it is kind of like a genetic defect or some sort of injury that it might have sustained a a early age. Here is a web site that carries the pictures of common fish in Kentucky you might be able to recognize it off of there.........[url]http://campus.murraystate.edu/academic/faculty/howard.whiteman/field/fish/fishgallery/fishgallery.htm[/url]

If it had a dorsal fin that went all the way to its tail, it was a bowfin (also called a grinnel or dogfish) They like spinnerbaits.

I'm not sure that a bowfin has whiskers or large scales, but I wouldn't rule it out I guess. I'm just judging by the pictures

Elijah Orr
Kentucky Lake Bass Club
Asst. TD
270-354-5285
[email][email protected][/email]

Did you by any chance keep the fish.. any chance of a picture?
Never seen anything with whiskers that had scales..
Jim