I'm looking to keep only male tog when fishing for them this fall. What is the best way to identify a female vs a male?

The bigger males will have white on the bottom of their chin and underneath
male on left

Really? I thought it was the other way around. Males are smaller with females having the white chins and bottom with the huge anus.

Most of the bigger whitechins I have caught in May/June had eggs in them.

Thanks for the clarification. I know that they have a slow growth rate and have a high potential for overfishing so i want to make sure I'm only taking males and leave the big breeder females to do their thing in the spring.

Being someone who has targeted Tautog/Blackfish my entire life the males are definately the white chins with the blunt head.
Females have a tendency to be a little more pointed in their body makeup where males are usually more box like.
This is a very slow growing species so please only take what you need and return the rest.
This website will give some good info on the species.

tight lines,George


http://www.edc.uri.edu/restoration/html/gallery/fish/tautog.htm
Tautog

Those fish are one of the most difficult I ever tried to catch. Gotta have the knack which I obviously lack bigtime.

Those fish are one of the most difficult I ever tried to catch. Gotta have the knack which I obviously lack bigtime.

They sure can steal yr crabs! Had tog stew last nite ....yummmm

the second pic looks like a sunny....

Its a smaller female tog. lol
alot of times they are more molted color than that but it is a female tog.
And its the males that are called whitechins.