Freshwater Fish Species: Sturgeon, Gar, Bowfin, Burbot, Drum

A U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service employee leans over a boat beside an alligator gar in duckweed-covered water, its broad toothy snout at the surface — Photo: Ryan Hagerty, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (public domain)

The freshwater fish species most anglers cannot name are the ones outside the bass, trout, catfish, pike and perch families: sturgeon, gar, bowfin, burbot, drum, eel and paddlefish. Every angler meets some of them sooner or later. A few are giants: a white sturgeon passes 10 ft (3 m), and an alligator gar can top 300 lb.

A Texas rule of thumb for alligator gar: every extra foot doubles the fish’s age. Three feet at two and a half years, four feet at five, seven feet at about forty.

Start here

Burbot: the freshwater cod that spawns under the ice and tastes like lobster.
Lake whitefish: when it spawns, how to tell it from cisco, and why the Great Lakes catch has halved.
Pike, muskie and pickerel: the toothy ambush hunters, told apart.
Types of salmon: the five Pacific salmon and the Atlantic salmon.

Which fish is it?

The first column is what you see with the fish in the net; the fish-body terms explain the barbels and fins.

Fish	Recognize it by	How big	Where
Burbot	One chin barbel, two dorsal fins, slimy mottled skin	15–28 in; record 25 lb 2 oz (11.4 kg)	Cold, deep northern lakes and rivers
Lake sturgeon	Shark-like tail, bony plates, four barbels	4–6 ft, 30–80 lb; record 168 lb (76 kg)	Great Lakes, Hudson Bay and Mississippi basins
White sturgeon	The same armor, far larger	Over 10 ft (3 m); record 468 lb (212 kg)	Pacific rivers, Alaska to California
Paddlefish	A paddle-shaped snout a third of its length	To 7 ft; Oklahoma record 164 lb (74 kg)	Mississippi basin
Alligator gar	Broad snout, two rows of teeth in the upper jaw	To 8 ft and 300 lb; record 283 lb (128 kg)	Lower Mississippi and Gulf coast
Longnose gar	Snout ten times longer than wide, diamond scales	Michigan record 18 lb (8.2 kg), 53 in	Eastern states into Quebec
Bowfin	One long back fin, scaleless head, ringed tail spot	Michigan record 14 lb (6.4 kg)	Warm, weedy water in the East
Freshwater drum	Deep silver body, long two-part dorsal fin	Texas fish pass 30 lb (14 kg)	Appalachians to the Rockies
American eel	Snake-shaped, small fins	Females to 4 ft (1.2 m), about 9 lb	Atlantic and Gulf rivers
Lake whitefish	Silver cousin of the trout	Michigan record 14.28 lb (6.5 kg)	Great Lakes, Canada, Alaska

How big do sturgeon and paddlefish get?

The white sturgeon of the Pacific coast is the giant of the family: more than 10 ft long, and some live 100 years or more. Its rod-and-reel record of 468 lb was caught at Benicia, California, in 1983.

The lake sturgeon belongs to a line at least 150 million years old. A typical adult is 4 to 6 ft long, 30 to 80 lb and 50 to 100 years old. Its record, 168 lb, came from Ontario’s Georgian Bay in 1982, on a spinner and 12 lb line.

The paddlefish is the odd relative. It eats only plankton, swimming with its mouth open, and its paddle can be a third of its body. The heaviest on record weighed 164 lb, from Keystone Lake, Oklahoma, in June 2021: the state record, reported as a world record.

How big does an alligator gar get?

Texas Parks and Wildlife gives alligator gar of 8 ft and more than 300 lb. A 327 lb gar netted in Mississippi in 2011 was probably at least 95 years old. The current IGFA record is 283 lb, caught by Art Weston on Sam Rayburn Lake, Texas, in September 2023 on 6 lb line. It replaced a Rio Grande fish that had stood since 1951.

The longnose gar is the common one, across the eastern states, and its needle of a snout is unmistakable.

Is a bowfin a dogfish?

Much of the Midwest calls it one, but the bowfin is no shark: it belongs to an old family of its own that was around when dinosaurs roamed. It gulps air and survives in murky, oxygen-poor water, and in 2022 scientists split it into two species. It is often mistaken for a burbot or an invasive snakehead; the burbot page has the three side by side.

Which fish grunts, and which one crosses an ocean?

The freshwater drum, or sheepshead, is named for its sound: grunniens is Latin for grunting, and the fish can be heard doing it. It ranges from the Appalachians to the Rockies and eats zebra mussels in Lake Erie.

The American eel is the only freshwater eel in North America. Every one of them was born in the Sargasso Sea, in the middle of the Atlantic, and goes back there once to spawn.

Carp or buffalo?

The common carp came from Eurasia and is now recorded in every state except Alaska. The buffalo fishes look like carp but are native suckers. One of them holds an age record: a bigmouth buffalo has been aged at 112 years, the oldest known for a freshwater teleost, the group that takes in nearly every freshwater fish except the sturgeons, paddlefish, gars and bowfin.

Is a burbot a cod, and a whitefish a trout?

Relatives of both. The burbot is the only cod relative that lives its whole life in fresh water. The lake whitefish belongs to the trout and salmon family, though few anglers think of it that way. It has been the commercial fish of the Great Lakes for generations, and it carries more omega-3 fat than Atlantic cod.

How many freshwater fish species are there?

North America has 1,453 freshwater fish species, by the 2023 count of the continent’s two fish-science societies. About a third of the native species are minnows and a fifth are darters and perches. A Virginia Tech extension paper puts the familiar sport fish at about 5%. For the bass, trout and every other family, start at the fish species page.

All articles

Alligator Gar: Size, Teeth, Records, and How to Catch One
Alligator gar reach 8 ft and 300 lb and can live past 90 years. How to tell them from other gars, how to catch one, the records and the rules by state.
Burbot: The Freshwater Cod That Spawns Under the Ice
Burbot, the only freshwater cod: one chin barbel, 15–28 in, 1.5–5 lb. Where to find them, the glow jig and bait that work after dark, and the lobster test.
Whitefish: What It Is, When It Spawns, How Big It Gets and How to Catch One
Lake whitefish run 17–22 in and spawn at night in November–December at 43–46 °F. How to tell one from a cisco, catch it through the ice, and the records.

Freshwater Fish Species Outside the Big Families: Sturgeon, Gar, Bowfin, Burbot