Bait Fish / Smelt - Updated

Update

Thanks to "Carbono21", one of my followers and who has one of my favourite blogs (http://pasionporelcantabrico.blogspot.com.es/), I can now say that the correct name of the "Smelt" below is "Argentina presbyter". It's great to have followers of this category and for a professional like him to save the day. Thank you mate.

As I’m doing a series of posts on fishing with live bait fish I also wanted to let readers know what type of fish I’ll be using. It suddenly turned into the most difficult post to date. Finding the correct species has been a challenge and after several days of research I’m still not 100% sure I’ve got the right one.

The fish in question is commonly known as “smelt”, of this we can be sure. However, pinning it down to a specific one turned into several trips to the library and countless internet searches. I now have two possible candidates; “Argentina sphyreana” and “Argentina silus”. In truth something between these two would be perfect. 

The reason I’m confused is that after reading about both these candidates a little of both seems to be correct but at the same time some things about both don’t seem correct, such as habitat, location or size. I’m about 30% in favour of “Argentina sphyreana” and 65% of me leans towards “Argentina silus” leaving 5% open to other suggestions. It has dawned on me that there are a lot of fish in our seas that have been studied very little.

Anyway, it's definitely a fish, a little one.

Library Pictures:

Argentina sphyreana

Argentina silus

My pictures

Argentina Presbyter

If anyone has more to add I would greatly appreciate your comment.

Happy Fishing