What kinda fish

Sorry, no picture - been kicking myself all day because I didn't take one :o

But anyway, yesterday at Bay Springs lake, up here in NE MS, I stopped
crappie fishin after fighting the high wind all morning and pulled
up into a cove to eat lunch and take a break. I had part of a bucket of
crickets left over from last wkend that were gonna go to waste, so
I rigged up and tossed one out, ended up getting into a pretty good bed.
Mostly bluegill, but after I got them thinned out a little, got to catching
what I took to be redear, or shellcrackers. I thought at the time that they
looked sorta odd, but was too busy catching to really pay attention.

Got home with them in the livewell, and turned them loose in my Dad's pond.
That's when I got to noticing their color, and how big their mouths were.
Looked just like a spawning male crappie, big mouth, long body, sort of
speckled along their sides, and black as coal along their
belly - but with red edges around the little tab on their gills :confused:
What the heck do ya'll think they were? Kind of put me in mind of goggle
eyes, but I don't remember them having red on the gill flaps? And seems
like when I used to catch those, they had red eyes - these didn't.

If they were redears, is it normal where you are from for them to turn black
like a crappie when they're bedding?

I also catch these while bream and crappie fishing the banks from my boat. Lots of names for these but I'm pretty sure they are WARMOUTH BASS. I don't keep them unless I have to and they fry up and taste like bass. They are fun to catch because they put up one heck of a battle for their size.

Were they something similar to this?

http://www.dec.ny.gov/images/fish_ma...s/rockbass.gif

I know that they weren't red ear.....

Sounds like warmouth to me.

Folks round here call them black perch. The rocky flowing creeks are eat up with them. I catch them while I am smallmouth fishing. I have never ate one but they do get some size on them. Like 10 to 13 inches would be a real good one.

State record in KY is 1 pound 10 ounces.

Thanks for pointin me in the right direction guys -
found this pic, and this is most definitely what I had - warmouth.
It said on the site where I found this that they often have
red gill flaps, and hybridize with bluegill and green sunfish
which would explain some about catching them outta the same bed.

thats a google eye or as you call it a war mouth.