Mississppi River Bait Fish ID

I was fishing the Mississippi River on Lake Pepin near Wabasha this fall for several weeks and when I first started fishing there around the end of August there were, especially in some of the back water deeper pools, high concentrations of tightly packed schools of small silvery slender minnows.They were, on average, about an inch and 1/2 long. By the occasional surface disturbances, it was obvious the predator fish were keying on them. In fact, I witnessed one occasion where a crappie almost beached himself on the sand chasing them into shallow water. After a few weeks I didn’t notice the minnows so much and by the middle of October, I didn’t see them at all.

Base on the location, timeline, and description, anyone have any thoughts to as what type of bait fish these would have been? Needless to say, it made for great fishing while it lasted.

I fish the same areas, sounds a lot like emerald shiners. Sometimes they are so thick the kids can scoop them with the bait net.

I would say probably Gizzard Shad

Badgerbacker: I did a little research based on your comment and I think you are spot on. Cool little fish, fun to watch the schools swim, all in unison. I also found some pretty neat emerald shiner fly patterns, so i guess I’ll be tying some of those up this winter for next year.

Thanks!

3Rivers: That was my first guess as well, but they had wrong profile. These minnows were skinny… I am pretty certain they were emerald shiners based on info here on IDO’s and what I found on the internet on other sites. There were certainly lots of them around, at least for awhile.

I always call them pin minnows since they’re basically too small for me to identify. I see huge shoals of them in marinas about now. They can be driven by water temperature and water stability, hence the marinas. The docks and floats I the marinas suck up sunlight and warm nicely during the daytime hours and will deliver the heat to the water when the sun sets. Once the daytime temps are cold enough to stop the dock heating these minnows disappear from the surface waters but I think they use the marinas for wintering what with all the pilings and floats that have year round algae and micro insect life. The water in marinas will be relatively stable save for rising or fall water levels. Just my thoughts but they may do something else.

I’ve watched crappies and white bass chase pin minnows into shallow rocks before. Sunfish will do the same. I’ve also watched crappies under docks in the shade just appear from underneath a cloud of these minnows and pluck minnows off the bottom of the pack.