This looked just like a carp (to us)....I'm sure I'm wrong. It was a good fight for a little fish!
I'd only caught redeyes, smb and rbt out of the creek up until now. Well, that and trees, shrubs, rocks, if there is something hanging down or poking up out of the water I'll be around in a second!
I know this is a really old thread but no one ever answered it correctly (or at least completely). The ones who answered "sucker" were correct. More specifically that is a red horse sucker. It is not a common creek chub or river chub. People often confuse creek chubs and this type of sucker. They have similar head and body shapes but are not the same. There are quite a few sub-species of red horse sucker. The ones I'm familiar with: The northern red horse, the golden red horse, the short head red horse, and the redfin. These are fairly common in places you find small mouth bass as they like similar habitat. I've caught them in Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin. I've heard of them in Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Missouri. They are likely common in the entire Mississippi river valley and it's tributaries. Some regions might have different pet names for the sub-species. I know the ones I saw in Missouri they were calling "river redhorse" looked exactly the same as the ones I know as golden redhorse. Red horse can get pretty big at 10+ pounds but big ones aren't that common. From the pic your fish looks like a golden or river redhorse. They are fun to catch but they sure slime your hands up pretty good when you hold them and try to unhook them.
