Fish ID help needed.

[tlapinski]

When I was younger I used to gather these small fish from under rocks in CT. They were always in the puddles under rocks in this stretch of shoreline. I had not seen any in a long time until I snagged one on a darter back in September. Again, the shoreline was very rocky. To best describe the fish would be to call it a juvenile wolf fish. I looked in my copy of Fishes of the Gulf of Maine, but could not positively ID it. It still looked most like a baby wolf fish. Most of the time when I was little, they were between 2" - 5". The one I "caught" this summer was about 4" long. Any thoughts?

[MakoMike]

Some type of Goby. Do a google on "goby" and see if you can find a picture of it.

[Nebe]

toadfish??

[RIROCKHOUND]

Probably a goby.. they are fairly common...
it wasnt baby choggie was it? that have some funky teeth when they are young

[tlapinski]

I did a goby image search, and it looked like that. What the hell is a choggie? I've heard the term a million times, but never got a sure idea of what it is. Baby cunner?

It didn't look like a toadfish, but that's a good guess.

[RIROCKHOUND]

yeah cunner = choggie

[tlapinski]

Ok, it wasn't a choggie then.

[Surely Bassey]

maybe a tommycod?

[Max Power]

Matches the description of an inshore lizard fish to a degree, and they do inhabit those types of environments. It could also be some sort of pout, but I'm not sure they occupy shallow water.

[Clammer]

Are they brown /kinder a slippery body//XL large mouth .. If soooooooooooo we used to call them dogfish /but actually they are in the toadfish family ><>,.,

[clambelly]

[QUOTE=tlapinski] What the hell is a choggie? I've heard the term a million times, but never got a sure idea of what it is. Baby cunner?
QUOTE]

choggies are those little fishies that the oriental folks love to load their buckets with down at the canal! catch 'em with periwinkles.

[Christian]

i know exactly what your talking about, i think.

were they redish? eel like, but more like a wolf fish.

[Christian]

here, i took a guess. because usually i find these around rocks, and they look like eels, so i searched rock eel. this is what i am talking about.

http://www.gma.org/fogm/Pholis_gunnellus.htm

[Christian]

aka - gunnel fish

[ridler72]

I found something similar up in Cape Ann at Pebble Beach a couple of years ago in the belly of a Bass. It was pink and grayish with a head and body like a wolf fish. about 6" long.

[ridler72]

Thats looks like the one!~ Gunnel fish, nice.

[ridler72]

Pink and chartreuse. Another reason to buy more plastics.

[striprman]

when I was a kid, mom and dad used to have a seasonal trailer at Libbys oceanside camp in York maine. We would go swimming and fishing at long sands beach and lobster cove. We would look for lobsters under the rocks on the long rocky outcroppings there and find "gunnels" all the time.

[Christian]

Originally Posted by striprman

when I was a kid, mom and dad used to have a seasonal trailer at Libbys oceanside camp in York maine. We would go swimming and fishing at long sands beach and lobster cove. We would look for lobsters under the rocks on the long rocky outcroppings there and find "gunnels" all the time.

EXACTLY where i found mine. small world. my mom used to stay there as a kid as well.
yellow poppers at sunrise over that boulder field.

[tlapinski]

Thanks Christian, I think you figured it out! I'll have to find a couple this season and get a good picture of one. Here's another reason why I'm here!

[Clogston29]

I posted recently about finding what I thought were a small cusk in a bass caught on BI. Looking at these pictures, it seams that this may have been what it was. The ones I found were 3" - 4".