Sauger or Saugeye and Why??

I have never been able to positively identify the difference between Saugers and Saugeyes. I know a Saugeye is a cross between a Walleye and a Sauger and share similar markings.

I have attached pictures of some fish I caught this past Summer on the Mississippi River Pool 2. Most are Saugers but a few may be Saugeyes. The only one I think may be a Saugeye would be pic 1 – because of the white tip on the tail and the vertical bars on the dorsal fin (as opposed to spots on a Sauger). Although, maybe it is a Walleye??

I would like to get feedback from SME’s (subject matter experts) on the differences and why. Which one(s) of these fish are in fact Saugeyes? I even added numbers to the pictures for reference.

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A few more Pictures…

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Saugeye have Sauger coloration but white fin tips on tail and anal fin. click on photo to see whole fish

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The pic labeled pic 1, is debateable. That has some darker Sauger like coloring but definitely has a white tail. That’s the only one at first look that I’d question.

YOu pic number I would say is a saugeye. Compare its anal fin coloration to my pic from Ohio DNR and your other ones they are different and number one has white tail tip

mwal wrote:

YOu pic number I would say is a saugeye. Compare its anal fin coloration to my pic from Ohio DNR and your other ones they are different and number one has white tail tip

The other thing to notice is the dorsal fin from both my pic 1 and your pic from the Ohio DNR. There are black bars on the dorsal fin as opposed to my pic 7 (for sure Sauger) which has black dots.

This is a fascinating post. I’ll be learning for sure.

With genetics the way they work, I would assume there is alot of room for discrepancies on the mix. Some may have more/less white tips, black spots, colorations, etc and still be from the same 2 mixed parent fish??

Good post. It’s difficult if not impossible to positively identify a saugeye from a sauger or walleye. The only way to positively identify a saugeye is through genetic testing.

It would help a lot to be able to see the dorsal fin. Unfortunately, most of your pictures do not show the dorsal fin.

After viewing all the pictures repeatedly, the only fish that I might possibly identify as a saugeye, is picture #1.
All the other fish appear to be saugers.

When we catch a possible saugeye, we always try to identify it first as either a walleye or sauger. It we can’t positively identify it as one or the other, then we can make the assumption that its a saugeye.

The picture I’ve attached is from last December on the Wisconsin river. My long time friend Kevin achieved a rare catch when he caught a limit of 3 fish below the Prairie du Sac dam. One fish was a sauger, one a walleye and the other a saugeye. Unfortunately, you can’t see the dorsal fin on the saugeye in this picture either.

The dorsal fin and the gill plate will both give some very good clues as to which species the fish is.

True walleyes are generally very easy to identify as are true saugers.

True walleye have no spots on the dorsal fin and the cheek over the gill plate is smooth. Not to mention the obvious white spot on the tail and lesser know but equally identifiable black spot at the base of the dorsal fin. (tail end of dorsal fin)

True saugers have rows of black dots on the dorsal fin, rough, sandpaper like cheeks over the gill plate and no black spot at the base of the dorsal fin. And most of already know they also have dark patches & a much smaller white spot on the tail.

Walleyes & saugers also have a general color pattern that differs considerably from different bodies of water or many times even from the same body of water. Walleyes generally being more yellow and saugers more tan, brown or sand colored with darker blotches on their body.

Saugeyes, can and will have all kinds of varied color patterns ranging from almost identical to a walleye or sauger, which inevitably makes it very hard to identify.
When you look at the dorsal fin of a saugeye, many times it will have spots but they will not be in organized rows or the spots will not be uniform is shape. (irregular)
The cheek above the gill plate will be slightly sandpaper like but not like a true saugers and certainly not as smooth as a true walleye.

If you get in the habit of closely inspecting more fish for the details listed, it can help make it a little easier when trying to identify a true saugeye although there are certainly instances where its going to take a scientist to tell for sure.

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X2 – Great post
Never knew there was such a thing.
If it is on your stringer does the DNR classify it as a walleye, sauger, or saugereye?

Joel,

Good information. I’ve read somewhere that saugeyes are not sterile like some hybrid species so you could have any ratio of walleye-to-sauger genetics. So the saugeye could be 50% walleye/50% sauger if the parents were a pure walleye and a pure sauger. If that saugeye then fertilized pure walleye eggs, that offspring would be 75% walleye/25% sauger. So one can quickly see how the saugeye can be mostly walleye, mostly sauger, or anywhere in between. I don’t know if the male walleyes fertilize sauger eggs or if male saugers fertilize walleye eggs or if both can happen. If saugeyes are not sterile, I’d guess either could take place. So I don’t think it’s quite as simple as walleye, sauger, or saugeye. It’s more like what walleye-to-sauger ratio is the saugeye and that’s why it can be pretty confusing.

Eelpoutguy,
Years ago I was checked by the DNR coming off the water at Everts. I had some fish in the 15-16″ range. All they did was look at the dorsal fin. If it had spots, they didn’t bother to measure its length because sauger have no minimum length limit. I think if it had blotch spots they’d classify it as a sauger, especially it didn’t have the classic larger white tip on the tail nor the black spot at the rear end of the dorsal fin. If in doubt, just make sure it’s over 15″ and you’ll be legal.

Boone

KWP contacted me last Friday to ask for some information on Walleye, Sauger, and saugeye (Walleye x Sauger Hybrids) and how to identify them.

I know this question has come up before and contacted our staff geneticist to see if he had processed any Mississippi River samples to check for hybridization rates. Unfortunately we have not done a genetic study looking at hybridization on the river. He did however provide me with several papers that have looked at this on the Illinois and Ohio Rivers (both large river systems that have Walleye and Sauger populations). The studies both evaluated field identification of fish by biologists as Walleye, Sauger, or saugeye using genetic analysis.

As mentioned by other posters here the typical field ID characteristics are as follows:

Walleye:
• A dark spot at the base of the tail end of the dorsal fin with no spots on the tissue between the spines of the rest of the dorsal fin. (best id characteristic)
• A white spot on the tip of the lower lobe of the tail (also seen to a letter degree on Sauger and occasionally worn heavily)

Sauger:
• Distinct rows of spots between spines on the dorsal fin with no large dark spot at the base of the dorsal fin.

To broadly paraphrase what the studies found without going into too much technical detail most fish identified in the field as Sauger were in fact Sauger. Many (10-83%) of the fish identified as Saugeye were also Sauger. Our geneticist indicated that this could be a bit of an overestimate, because of the way that study was done. It was looking for primarily F1 crosses which result from a pure Sauger parent and a pure Walleye parent. As Boone pointed out further generations where you cross an F1 hybrid back to a pure strain could reinforce both the physical characteristics as well as muddle a basic genetic test (particularly if you do this for several generations). Do to this downstream backcrossing of hybrids there were a surprisingly high number of fish identified as Walleye in the field that were actually saugeye.
In the Mississippi River system (especially in Pool 4/Lake Pepin) where our Sauger to Walleye ratio is often 4:1 or higher there is likely a little bit of Sauger genetics in much of the Walleye population. It would be an interesting project to be part of sometime if the funding were available. From a practical standpoint the hybridization makes little difference to the angler, because any fish displaying Walleye characteristics (Walleye or saugeye hybrid) will be treated as a Walleye by conservation officers and therefore subject to the 15” minimum length limit. (Whenever a hybrid is not specifically given different length or bag limits the most stringent limits applying to one of the parent species are enforced)

As an additional piece of related information, many of you have seen posts or reports by myself or my predecessors talking about preferred spawning habitats for Walleye and Sauger particularly in Pool 4. As a quick refresher Walleye seem to prefer flooded terrestrial vegetation (grass and brush) available during high water periods, while Sauger seem to prefer areas in deeper water along channel edges. These preferences, particularly those of the Walleye, result in a fairly strong link between high water during the spring and production of strong Walleye year classes on Pool 4. The spring of 2015, however, had low water through much of the spawning period. This likely causes Walleye to spawn in their next choice of spawning habitat which is similar to that preferred by Sauger. Due to the two species “crowding” together for spawning space I would guess low water years would produce a higher proportion of hybrid (specifically F1 hybrid saugeye) offspring than high water years. Maybe we will get to test that theory sometime with a genetics study.

As always feel free to contact me with any specific questions you might have and I will do my best to address them for you.
Have a happy holiday season.

Nick Schlesser Large Lake Specialist (Lake Pepin/Pool 4)

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Nick,

As always, thanks for the great information. I wouldn’t expect anything less from an Iowa State University man.

Boone

yeah all but pic 1 is a sauger. and pic 1 may be but it could be a saugeye.

tons of people around here think super light saugers are walleyes, dark saugers are saugeyes, there was a guy at the ramp a month ago with 2 really light 21 and 23″ eyes. i was like, if you didn’t know there is a slot here. and he was like we know these are saugers. i hate doing it but i showed them how they weren’t. they released the fish but were ticked because the bite was good and they left each with a limit minus one when they had caught other good fish.

Another point of interest is looking at the body of the fish. Saugers are river fish, thus being more torpedo-like in shape. Saugeyes really look more like a walleye. It gets difficult sometimes to tell the saugers when they get big; I’ve caught a few over 3lbs here in NE that looked like a fat walleye in their body. But still something to think about next time you’re looking at them. If you’re able to get a sauger and saugeye together, or a walleye and either of them, you’ll definitely see the difference and remember it. That’s how I finally figured out the saugeyes.