Sunfish Identification

ABolt

Twelve Pointer
Contributor
My son and I caught a couple dozen of these at our local golf course pond in the last hour of light yesterday. On 3-weight fly rods with 2lb tippet and a #10 chartreuse popper, they put up quite a fight. I'm always surprised at how hard these slabs battle.

Anyway, I was really taken by the colors, and tried looking them up to identify. I was leaning towards 'spotted sunfish', but could not seem to find an exact match in any charts, since these seemed to have much more yellow/orange from gill to tail. Hopefully we can get a quick consensus on the exact sunfish ID.

Thanks in advance for the input...

Popper.jpg
 

nccatfisher

Old Mossy Horns
Contributor
Common sunfish, pumpkinseed bream whatever makes you happy. I call them primo flathead bait.
 
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Eric Revo

Old Mossy Horns
Contributor
Looks like a shell cracker to me..they are stockier than a lot of bream species and love to hit those popping bugs.
 

oldest school

Old Mossy Horns
longear sunfish. maybe. :) they get confusing. i bet he was fun on a 3 wt.

my image link failed but google has one that is identical to this under longear sunfish in images.
 
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lasttombstone

Kinder, Gentler LTS
There are so many different types of sunfish/bream that unless you are a bonified fishologist you just cal lthem all bream. I'll agree with woodmoose though. Had a mess of them Sat.night. Three fingers to titty bream, they were all good.
 

ABolt

Twelve Pointer
Contributor
Thanks for the replies guys - the varied answers confirm the level of confusion I had when trying to identify it online last night. If I had to bet, I'd say it's some sort of cross-breed / hybrid of various southern sunfish.

Two different biologists friends of mine who work for their respective states (Massachusetts and Alabama) gave me different answers of longear sunfish and pumpkinseed.

So I think we are all right, and should just keep on catching these lovely little rockets on ultra-light tackle. Heck, I felt like Flip Pallot out there yesterday :)
 
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Mack in N.C.

Old Mossy Horns
Green x bluegill hybrid

I know my sunfish pretty well nd I agree it is a hybrid but a pumpkinseed x bluegill hybrid. or like someone said a redbrest blugill hybrid but I am sure it is not full blooded.
 
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Mack in N.C.

Old Mossy Horns
This is a full blooded Pumpkinseed.
I don't see Abolts as 100 percent but it defiantly has a lot of pseed in it

added: the orange on the edge of Abolts fishs fins may suggest Green sunfish in it somewhat.

DSCF3896.jpg
 
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ABolt

Twelve Pointer
Contributor
Yes - that one looks like it jumped right off of the "Game Fish of NC" poster.
 

old dog

Spike
looks like a red ear to me. They've been biting lately at a pond I fish. They get bigger than many other sunfish.
 

JONOV

Old Mossy Horns
I made up my mind long ago to call all fish that look like that,,,, sunnies. Fun and tasty!

Yep...That's what they call them in Minnesota, no matter the species, its a "sunny."

Just like southerners simply call them "Bream."
 
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