In the Namekagon River located in northern Wi there be a fish I always referred to as Redhorse. They tend to be large and are reddish rust colored suckers. The DNR site lists only silver redhorse. Is that the species I am referring too? I’m trying to find out state record weight of this fish. I caught/released one this weekend that may have been a contender.
When I was a kid, I caught them below 5a dam at Winona. We called them red horse.
I looked online and there are seven redhorse species in MN and WI. I would think it would take a fisheries biologist to tell them apart.
Mwal
Yea but of all the ones I have seen I have not seen a weight that scares me. I may have had a legitmate record sized one this weekend. Trophy size for the species at the very least.
Can you find a pic online close to what you caught?
I can’t tell many of the suckers apart yet, but maybe Outdoors4Life will see this and chime in or some of the other people who know. But I think without a picture, you are only going to get best guesses. Not too long ago I only thought there was 1 sucker species and that was called a sucker.
What I was told is that to be a true redhorse, the tail is the feature you look at. I white sucker can appear to have a reddish body. The redhorse also has a smaller mouth. This is info. that I was given, and I am only sharing what I was told. Check out the roughfish.com website. It may be a little help.
Wisconsin’s record is a lunker @ 11 Lbs. 7 oz. Silver’s have a convex shaped dorsal fin and don’t have as red o’ fins as shortheads, river, and greater redhorse. How big was the one you caught? Any pics?
I’m pretty sure the Namekagon has Shortheads, Goldens, Silvers, and River Redhorse. Rivers are the biggest and are protected in WI. There might be Greaters in there too, which are very large and protected as well.
Did the fish have a red/orange tail or a greyish tail? That is the first step in narrowing down redhorse species.
With a decent picture we ought to be able to get it pegged down pretty easy, do you have one?
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I looked online and there are seven redhorse species in MN and WI. I would think it would take a fisheries biologist to tell them apart.
Mwal
No need to be a biologist. Once you know what to look for most of the redhorse species are easy to identify. The toughest is probably the Black (looks much like a golden) and even that even that one can be identified definitively by anyone who can count to 47 (number of lateral line scales)
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I’m pretty sure the Namekagon has Shortheads, Goldens, Silvers, and River Redhorse. Rivers are the biggest and are protected in WI. There might be Greaters in there too, which are very large and protected as well.
Did the fish have a red/orange tail or a greyish tail? That is the first step in narrowing down redhorse species.
With a decent picture we ought to be able to get it pegged down pretty easy, do you have one?
Thanks Tony. Good info. I’m not suprised they are protected but a local bar owner up there told me and God knows how many other people the DNR wants them killed on-sight. I thought that sounded ridiculous and I wont do that for any species I catch. Like 85% of the fish I catch I was alone and had no camera. I didnt even try to measure by holding to my rod which is stupid now that I think about it. I just know it was incredibly large for what it was. I have caught a few of these monsters and seen them even more. It was so big I couldn’t grab it and hesitated to reach under its gill plate. I kicked it onshore enough so I could hold it down with one hand while removing hook with other. This fish was definitely over 10 lbs though I would be guessing past that. I thought more like 12 but….I caught it on 8 lb test in heavy current. The only reason I was able to play it out is becasue it was in a small deep run with no other deep water around. It would not leave that run. It truly was a spectacular fish. Next time I will try to remember details. Seems liek its fins were all red? This one did not have a spiny bulbous nose like others I have caught there before.
Most likely you caught a River Redhorse, and big one at that. Congrats! The spines on the nose were tubercles, which the males have during the spawn.
Hopefully the bar owner will take a long walk off a short pier…
Consequences for killing a protected animal in WI are $2,000-$5,000 , loss of hunting/fishing privileges for 3 years and possibly 9 months in prison.
The DNR wanting a species killed thing seems to come up every once in a while, I cannot find any time (even in the past) when killing native species was condoned by the DNR. Rarely do they even condone killing non-natives.
The ol’ ‘YOU HAVE TO KILL EVERY CARP YOU CATCH!’ statement? I still hear that from some rubes when at the river.
In MN, it is illegaly to wantonly waste or return dead fish to any body of water. 
Are you sure it wasn’t a carp? They are often reddish/rust colored and get much bigger than all of the redhorse species. Easy way to tell–carp have small barbels, redhorse have no barbels.
Yea. It was a sucker for sure. I’m glad you guys told me it was protected. I had thoughts of taking the next one like that to the taxidermist. What a mistake that would have been!!
Suzuki I can tell you with 95% certainty that you caught a nice River Redhorse. CastAndBlast caught a River Redhorse that was 10LBS 1OZ that is mounted and on my wall. Like stated by Tony they are protected in WI as are other species. It is SOOOOO frustrating when dealing with some people that think they need to be killed. In that area the mentality is not they same as mine and I really have to be careful.
Once you have caught redhorse and taken the time to learn how to ID them all the midwest ones are fairly easy to tell. I could ask you details about the fish but I doubt you would remember those details. I have caught a number of Rivers over 7 lbs and they are a hoot.
Here are a few pics of Rivers 
Here is a greater
I’ll try to get one up of the mount. I have posted it before.
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Yea. It was a sucker for sure. I’m glad you guys told me it was protected. I had thoughts of taking the next one like that to the taxidermist. What a mistake that would have been!!
Only Taxidermist I go to for fish
He already has the cast for a 29 incher so he can make a replica. He is truely the best I have seen. and the re is a pic on here of the 29 inch river redhorse.
How can you get them mounted if they are protected? Oh and thanks for all the info. I havent checked this post for some time.
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How can you get them mounted if they are protected? Oh and thanks for all the info. I havent checked this post for some time.
Not sure about C&B fish. They aren’t protected (yet) in Minnesota.
That mount was a replica mount. The guy who did it does great work and you cannot tell the difference with a skin mount.
River Redhorse and Greater Redhorse are protected in WI which means any current records will stand since one cannot legally be harvested to break any current records.
Here is my tanker. This is the biggest Redhorse I have ever seen or caught.
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