Mystery fish in the Catawba river(possible snakehead spotting)

[Doc Holiday]

Ok, I haven't fished the Catawba river too much even though I've lived in Charlotte for the last 15 years, I was trying a new spot over for me below the dam in I think Fort Mill SC and about half way through the trip I saw what I thought was a 17" Longnose gar but didn't get a good look at it, didn't see the head.

Towards the end I saw a really big longnose gar and got a really good look at it and noticed that the skin was completely different from the fish I saw earlier (other one had a kind of Camo skin while the big longnose had plain skin) and decided to look it up this evening to see what it was.

the only thing that it could have been that fits the skin was a Northern Snakehead. http://www.outdoorcentral.com/mc/pr/07/05/30a1a2aa1.asp

so my question is do the Longnose gar's have differnt skin at a younger age or is there another fish that could fit the skin other then the Northern Snakehead??

for those unfamiliar with the snakehead, it's a very invasive very aggressive fish, local Biologist as per the link I gave earlier basically said it's a kill it on sight fish.

[Skew]

I was just skinny dipping.