More buffalos for investigation

I'll throw my hat in the ring.  I did a quick SLxDepth.  

The first two are SM Buffs.  They have big eyes too.  The mouth is weird  but there are a lot of strange Buffs in the cove.

The 3/4 (I assume the same) fish is tough to tell.  It is definately long enough to be a Black.  Smaller eye too.  

I'm no expert but I'd say that the last fish is suspect enough to deserve expert opinion.  They all say the ID'ing them under 10 or 15 lbs or so is less obvious but it isn't impossible. 

Top one looks an awful lot like a bigmouth but the others are looking more like black buffs, especially the bottom one. The mouth angulature just doesn't look quite like a bigmouth or smallmouth to me. I'm far from an expert but that's my two cents. 

I agree with Tony 
The top two are smallmouth buffalo. The body depth to body legth ratio put it in the Smallmouth buffalo range as does the mouth size. The bottom two (Assuming the same fish due to the miscolored scale and lateral line pattern) I would consider suspect. 
Although its hard to tell in the picture because of the angle its heard at. But from what I can see its body depth ratio puts it comfortably into the black buffalo range as do the cheek preportions and they eye t mouth size. 
Again a straight on picture would be helpful

There is also something odd about the slope of the back. Typical Smallmouth buffs have a fairly even slope from the insertion of the dorsal fin to the head. Black buffalo especially the smaller confirmed ones I have seen seem to have a gradual slope that suddenly drops into the top of the head. 
Its hard to explain but its something I have been playing with for a while. One of the reasons I had wanted people to send me buffalo pics of them laying flat.

I defer all potential black buffalo identification to folks who know more than I do now.  Like you guys!  The whole length of this to that or the other seem to point out that the bottom fish is questionable for sure.  I caught that fish a long time ago amidst a smallmouth buff bonanza of 50 or so fish landed, so didn't pay all that much attention.  Maybe I will send it to an expert that I know at the DNR to see what he thinks.  Maybe Lyons as well.  Thanks, guys.  

Looking at these fish, I would say the last two (same fish?) are blacks. The sleeker profile and those lips sell it to me. The mouth angle looks to be about right and with the combination of the "full" lips, I would say black and have little qualms about it. From my research it seemed that blacks had an intermediate body shape, between the sleek, cylindrical bigmouths and the, for lack of a better term, squared off smallmouth buffs. Of course there is variation and that is what really makes ID a bugger. Without looking into the raitos and all that I would say the last two photos would show black buffalo. The second fish for me is the most interesting. First, I see that the lips are very fine, meaning to me, not a black. I see a squareish fish, meaning to me smallmouth. But then when you add in the lips, they seem extended and not sub-terminal fully. The fish also does not strike me as being a hybrid though either... I don't know what I would call that fish with out really taking it apart and looking at other identifiers. Hmm. It will be interesting to see what an expert has to say about the lot.

Thinking back to my research, it would be interesting to know if the angler noticed the fish making any sounds. All the blacks I caught for my research made a really interesting sound when their lips where not extended and they would open their gill flaps. It was a very audible, dull pop sound. Like removing the lid of a Tupperware container. No other buffalo I handled made any sound when their gill flaps would open and their mouths were "closed." New ID character?? :) 

These buffalo puzzles are really great.

Sound as an ID factor? Awesome. Now I have another reason to get a GoPro, so I can record video and audio of every buffalo I catch. If only I could catch more of them!

I showed all of the photos of this buffalo to two different notable Icthyologists, and they both said the fish was a smallmouth/black hybrid.  Also, John Lyons said that measurements such as the ones we used here are not reliable unless the fish is dead in front of you.  Otherwise a definite identification is basically impossible.  He said that measurements must be very precise and that they overlap.  

I still don't know if I believe in such a thing as a black buffalo...

So did any of them point you in a direction for Black X Smallmouth cross vs. Black? 

Seems like separating the hybrid from the slightly weird looking Smallmouth really isn't too bad.  But I have no clue how one separates a hybrid from a pure - especially in the smaller sizes.  

But yeah measurements need to be off a broadside fish - slightly a problem with the suspect fish in this case.  

It's all very subjective, Tony. Lyons said, "It's a matter of "look", rather than anything straightforward to count or measure.  ...Even when you can do these precise measurements, you aren't always sure..."

So I got nothing.

That's an easy one, Corey. You just shoot them with an arrow and they become carp. Then you say you're going to use them for fertilizer but leave them by the boat ramp for raccoons and flies.