Thanks Thanks:  0
HaHa HaHa:  0
Page 2 of 2 FirstFirst 12
Results 11 to 14 of 14

Thread: Green sunfish, two interesting fish and questions

  1. #11
    Join Date
    Oct 2013
    Location
    TEXAS
    Posts
    20,811
    Post Thanks / Like

    Default


    Quote Originally Posted by Schmoopie View Post
    What gives it away? Is it the orange breast or something else?
    Not “heady” enough ,mouth is small and body build is wrong to start with
    sum kawl me tha outlaw ketchn whales

  2. #12
    Join Date
    Oct 2011
    Location
    Minnesota
    Posts
    1,007
    Post Thanks / Like

    Default

    The left one, the greenie, may have been both full of eggs and been feeding heavily. With the little gluttons it might have been both. FWIW if the temp stays right and the food does, too, a pair of green sunfish can spawn every ten days or so year around. For that matter bluegills often respawn, too. Even here in Minneapolis, I have seen beds active from the end of May into just about the end of August. Not every year though.
    The other doesn't look to me like a greenie hybrid. Most of those I've seen inherit the greenie, outsized mouth. Almost certainly a bluegill was one of the parents and the other could have been just about any of the other sunfish species. Very few places that have sunfish have only a single species; so there are nearly always some hybrids of one sort or another. Of course there are also quite a few different types of true bluegill too, but the margin on the tab speaks against that.

  3. #13
    Join Date
    May 2020
    Location
    Memphis, TN
    Posts
    264
    Post Thanks / Like

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Ketchn View Post
    Not “heady” enough ,mouth is small and body build is wrong to start with
    The mouth looks like a bluegill in the photo, but I don't remember him to have as small of a mouth as it looks. Then again, I likely wasn't paying attention. This is a small creek and almost everything I catch has the green sunfish orange fins. I've caught a few bluegills, but I fish rocks mostly and those green sunfish love to hide in rocks (as do bluegill in ponds, but there aren't that many bluegills in this creek). The creek has several rock "dams" in it which fish can get through, but it's really mostly storm sewer drainage. At "normal" level, there are pools and nothing over 3-4' deep and maybe 6' wide. I'm fishing at the upper end of the creek. The creek empties into a river a few miles away and that river dumps into the Mississippi River probably 8 miles from there. Most fish don't travel up that far, though I've caught the occasional bluegill and bass, and have heard of others catching the occasional catfish. The fish are stunted because there are more fish in these pools than it can sustain until the runoff from streets and lawns occurs. My point is that the body shape may be an effect of the stunting, but there's also no reason why bluegill getting trapped up there during spawn wouldn't spawn there too (and create hybrids).

  4. #14
    Join Date
    Oct 2011
    Location
    Minnesota
    Posts
    1,007
    Post Thanks / Like

    Default

    The little green gluttons are so highly adaptable. They can also show a more rounded sunfish like body shape. It is certainly true that tiny waters also have smaller fish, and finding greenies hiding in the rocks in sometimes only inches of water is also common enough. The greens are present in such a wide range that there are almost certainly multiple strains, and they are used as bait in many places; so strains may well get moved around.

Page 2 of 2 FirstFirst 12

Tags for this Thread

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •  

BACK TO TOP