Obviously we want everyone to use commonly accepted names for fish species so we can communicate effectively with each other. However, it is fun to learn local names for different species.

Beyond being fun, we might learn a lot from this discussion. We might learn the geographical range in which a certain term is used. We might also learn where the same term means different species.

I'll start. Almost everyone in SD calls goldeyes, skipjacks. Skipjack herring only get into SD in the Missouri River below Gavins Point Dam.

We can almost tell where fishermen are from with what they call white bass. Nebraskan's call them striped bass and Minnesotan's call them silver bass.

Minnesotan's and people from northeast SD call bluegills "sunnies" or sunfish.

While in Florida, people were catching "speckled catfish". It took me a long time to figure out that these were brown bullheads.

First time I heard the term "perch jerkin'", I was a little worried about the family I married into. Originally from Illinois and a frequenter of Wisconsin (aren't most Illini?) perch were yellow perch, famous for swallowing hooks next to the dock, and darn good Northern Pike bait. Having spent a lot of time in other parts of the south, I was pretty familiar with "bream" or "brim", but perch was a new one. Another Oklahoma term I heard was "toad pickin'". Before then, I never knew that sand toads were a favorite bait for trotliners. We even had the Greater Pond Creek Toad Pickin Association. Entry fee: 100 toads. True story, they have T-shirts and everything.

Up here, northern pike are called Jackfish, or slough sharks. Walleye are still referred to as pickeral even though a pickeral is more like a pike. Burbot is called ling. My excavated pond is commonly called a dugout. Summer is called two months of tough snowmobiling.

here in texas, we only have 3 species.. bass, catfish, and sunfish!.. all grouped under these 3 headings..!!

oops.. almost forgot the minnow's!!.group 4

Christopher,
You are right!!! it either Crappie Bass Bream Catfish...there is absolulty no differances in the species....

Heck most people around here SWARE! that channel cats turn into blue cats when older!!!

Where I am from, along the Mississippi in the state of Missippi (as we pronounce it) red-ear are often called chinquipins. Crappie are "white perch," but in South Louisiana where I lived for some years, they were sac au lait,literally, "bag of milk." In South Louisiana, largemouth bass are called "green trout." Real joy is fishing in a brackish honey hole where you can catch green trout and specks (speckeled trout) at the same time and can even throw over a few nets with melts and pull in some fat crabs while you sip a cold Dixie beer.
Lou

Norm, round hyar, white bass are sand bass and all sunfish are perch. Although there are several subspecies of LMB, they are all black bass. With the exception of the Panhandle there are no Smallmouth anyway. Flatheads are yellow cats and all minnows are minners or shiners. I don't know of anyone who can tell the difference in a channel and/or blue cat unless they get pretty big and I've never met anyone who worried about it. Crappie are sometimes called paper mouths but are usually accepted as crappie unless it is in Southeast Texas where Louisiana influence changes the language.

Within the state, for the most part, we also call water holes stock tanks or just tanks. The dam is often called a tank dump (where the dirt gets dumped). Along the far Eastern parts they are sometimes called ponds or pools. I discussed this with Lusk once and he said this web site and the mag was named after the most common term.