Anglers seeking to hook a smallmouth buffalo have found success with doughballs and corn on hooks.

Although considered by many to be a rough fish, smallmouth buffalo is the most common commercially sold freshwater fish in the United States.

The smallmouth buffalo is a hardy fish that frequents clear, moderate to fast-moving streams but has been occasionally known in some lakes and ponds.

Ictiobus bubalus (Smallmouth buffalo)

Other rough fishes are native species that can be confused with carp because they look similar (bigmouth buffalo, smallmouth buffalo, and suckers).

The coloration of smallmouth buffalo ranges from shades of gray to brown and coppery green dorsally and pale yellow to white ventrally.

The bigmouth has been seen to hybridize in the wild with smallmouth buffalo, and it is possible that some fish identified as black buffalo are indeed these hybrids.

The average lifespan of a smallmouth buffalo is nine to eighteen years with males reaching sexual maturity in four to five years and females at around six years.

The other species exhibited in this tank include turtles, gar, bass, lake and shovelnose sturgeon, common carp, smallmouth buffalo, tiger muskie, channel catfish, and paddlefish, among others.

Other game there include white bass, bluegill, gizzard shad, shortnose gar, bigmouth buffalo, freshwater drum, smallmouth buffalo, common carp, Shorthead Redhorse, and northern pike.

The smallmouth buffalo's diet is primarily that of a detritivore, using its ventral sucker mouth to pick up vegetation and other organic matter from the bottom of its habitat, often scraping algae off of rocks.

The smallmouth buffalo (Ictiobus bubalus, from the Greek for "bull-fish" and "buffalo") is a Cypriniformes fish species found in the major tributaries and surrounding waters of the Mississippi River in the United States as well as some other water systems where it has been introduced.