Walleye Fish Identification

Fish Week!  YEAH!

Today's post answers the age old question...  Walleye, Pickerel or Sauger?

You can imagine the fighting that happens online with this question, especially with the difference between pickerel and walleye.  The fact is this:

A real pickerel, scientifically, is not what we usually call a pickerel.  A real pickerel is more closely related to pike/musky and has a very particular patterning.

Pickerel

Our grandparents and in some cases parents call walleye pickerel because it has become a common name for walleye, especially in Northern Ontario (same way people call burbot ling!)

Here's a walleye, you can see it's quite different looking:

Walleye

It's interesting to note that the colouring on this fish will change slightly from darker to lighter depending on the habitat of the fish.  River fish are usually lighter, and deep fish in stained water are darker.  Important to note is the lack of obvious patching and the white tip of the tail.

Here's a sauger.  It's in the same family as walleye (and counts towards your walleye limits) but has subtle differences:

Sauger

You can see it has more "patchy" dark spots as well as a spotted dorsal fin and no white spot on the base of the tail.  The saugers are also much smaller fully grown

Here are some "real" pictures of fish I've caught this winter of walleye vs. sauger and you can try and see the differences.  Toodles!