Strange Looking Redbreast Sunfish

Has anyone ever caught redbreast sunfish? The creek I live on is full of them, sometimes up to 9-1/2" even though it's a small body of water about 20' wide and 6' deep.

I don't have a photo, but the other day I caught something that looked like a cross between a redeye (rock bass) and a redbreast. Now redbreasts have a larger mouth than a bluegill and are much more colorful, but their mouth isn't as big as a redeyes. Would it be possible for a redbreast and a redeye to mate and hatch?

The photo on the left is an artists version of the redbreast, the photo on the right is the creek in my backyard.

i have caught plenty of redbreast but nothing like you have described. but i would love to fish that creek.its to bad we dont have transporters like they do on star trek.

Could it be a Pumkinseed ?We have a lot of them in the creeks here in southern IN.

That is what i would call that a punkinseed but i ain't never seen any of them get to be that big 91/2" that is a very big punkinseed.

We get them up at Lake erie while icefishing that size. Dont know about open water there tho. Some really pretty colors on those fish.

Looks like one of these to me: Freshwater Fish Facts - Alabama Longear

The fish is a redbreast, they are easily confused with the longear sunfish. I don't think I've seen a longear in my creek, but it's possible maybe downstream a few miles there could be longears. And it can't be a pumpkinseed, their body is much wider proportionally than the redbreast. There's a creek on the other side of the mountain from me called Crooked Fork Creek that contains (or used to) pumpkinseeds. I've never seen a pumpkinseed over 6".

Most people call this redbreast sunfish either redbellies or sungrannies. The female has a yellow belly, they're easily identified. Would like to figure out how this one I caught the other day had such a big mouth. It wasn't a purebred rock bass or redbreast, never seen anything like it in my life.

We used to call them sun pearch, or red breasted sunpearch. They seemed to fight harder than a regular bream. The ones we used to catch in Alabama had a lot of blue specks in them too.

Yes, they are much more aggressive than other bream. You don't see them in the lakes very often, they like streams. Maybe the fresh running water puts more pep into them. The only thing I don't like about them is if you fish live bait for them, you'll gut hook a bunch of them because they have larger mouths. I like to use roostertails and Rebel crankbaits, Rebel makes the crawfish crankbait that looks like a crawfish running backwards. Rebel also makes the grasshopper crankbait that's effective on them. They'll hit microspoons or just about anything thrown at them if they're in the mood. I've even caught them on 6" plastic worms.

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Originally Posted by ga.crappie&breamguy

i have caught plenty of redbreast but nothing like you have described. but i would love to fish that creek.its to bad we dont have transporters like they do on star trek.

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Here's some more photos of the creek a couple miles downstream. It's 8-10 deep here, water is clear (after the monsoons, hopefully) and loaded with redbreasts, redeyes, suckers, bluegill, bullhead catfish, and small bass. I have heard of a smallmouth 4 lbs. caught out of here, and have seen largemouths swimming in there at least that big. Getting one to hit is like trying to catch a 14 lb. largemouth out of a lake! About 5 or 6 miles downstream it eventually becomes part of Watts Bar Lake. This is about as far upriver that a fish can swim from up the lake.

Here's another photo looking upstream, downstream from the small waterfalls in the last photos. I hope Puffy don't mind me hijacking his photos from another website.:D The water was up a little when the photo was made. I love that creek, though I thought at one time we were gonna lose it to coal strip mining.

That is one more good lookin creek.

If the River/Creek Redbelly that I grew up with in Alabama got to be 8".. I dont think you could land him .... pullin is things I ever stuck a hook in .. we have them here in NW FL and they are called river brim, swift water brim, willow Brim and Red Bellies.

Theres a strain of them in the Ochalockne River that will get over a pound .. looks a little more like a blue gill but has big mouth , long ear, streaked jaws ... these are found below the dam at Talquin down river .. do not know about above Talquin.

Have a good un
JSC
:)

JSC, most redbreasts I catch in this creek are between 5" to 7". 8 inchers are common, but anything over that is unusual. Once 20+ years I caught a 9 incher below a larger waterfall. But 3 or 4 years ago I got a 9-1/2 incher out of my backyard. Caught it on a Rebel crawfish crankbait (I think or maybe a Rebel grasshopper). But 7" is about the norm, or if I were to keep a mess to eat, I'd probably put anything 6" or larger on the stringer. Not too many people fish this creek until it gets backed up in the headwaters of Watts Bar Lake.

Onto another subject, I fished my girlfriend's sister's pond this evening, caught about 6 bluegills and an 8" largemouth on a Blakemore Roadrunner with a 1-1/2 twister tail chartreuse grub. Some of the bluegill were puny, but I had one 8 incher and one 10 incher. I got the measurements, but didn't have scales. The 8 incher was a female, the 10 incher was a big black bull.

How much does anyone estimate how much a 10" bluegill would weigh? It had to be mighty close to a pound, at least 12-14 ounces, don't you think? Or more? I have the photo on my cell phone, but I'm not set up to send email messages and attach photos. It might costs a fortune to get that service we live so far back in the sticks.

JSC, Reckon those are the same species in the Ochalockne River as the redbreast sunfish? The Emory/Obed/Clear Creek/Daddy's Creek/Otter Creek/ and Little Emory River systems on the Cumberland Plateau holds a lot of these beautiful fish. I think they're a purty as a rainbow trout or yellow perch or even purtier.

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Originally Posted by JSC

If the River/Creek Redbelly that I grew up with in Alabama got to be 8".. I dont think you could land him .... pullin is things I ever stuck a hook in .. we have them here in NW FL and they are called river brim, swift water brim, willow Brim and Red Bellies. Theres a strain of them in the Ochalockne River that will get over a pound .. looks a little more like a blue gill but has big mouth , long ear, streaked jaws

Have a good un
JSC
:)

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Originally Posted by Festus_Haggen

The fish is a redbreast, they are easily confused with the longear sunfish. I don't think I've seen a longear in my creek, but it's possible maybe downstream a few miles there could be longears. And it can't be a pumpkinseed, their body is much wider proportionally than the redbreast. There's a creek on the other side of the mountain from me called Crooked Fork Creek that contains (or used to) pumpkinseeds. I've never seen a pumpkinseed over 6".

Most people call this redbreast sunfish either redbellies or sungrannies. The female has a yellow belly, they're easily identified. Would like to figure out how this one I caught the other day had such a big mouth. It wasn't a purebred rock bass or redbreast, never seen anything like it in my life.

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We catch a fish alot that meets your description. We always called them WARMOUTHS. They look like a bluegill-sunfish/redeye hybrid with alot of ATTITUDE...lol. Here, they live in dark places, like under a old boat dock or some other sort of cover in the water. They are MEANER than a mad copperhead and will slam a bait as hard as any bass. They are a blast to catch and a devil to clean. Seems they mixed the scales on these guys with some sort of SUPER GLUE because they won't come off...lol. They are pretty tasty though once you get past the armour....lol. Here is what I am talking about...http://i203.photobucket.com/albums/a...r/warmouth.jpg

Looks like a pumpkinseed to me. About 4inches is the biggest I have ever seen. Here in Idaho.

I have caught a bunch of them as a kid fishing small creeks. I dont ever remember catching anything over hand size though. They are in green river lake also. I always called them a sunfish, duh.

we call them red throats. catch them in the nottoway river, and they do get as big as you say, if you catch them at the right time. they migrate in the rivers we catch them in. tidal rivers.

Festus

That Ochlocknee (SP) fish is not like a warmouth at all ... it a little "Bluer" than the regular "Red Belly" and I think that may be from the color of the water (?) Catch them in the swift water and they will put a "Bend" in your Pole.

JSC
:)

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Originally Posted by GrouseFly

We catch a fish alot that meets your description. We always called them WARMOUTHS. They look like a bluegill-sunfish/redeye hybrid with alot of ATTITUDE...

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I've caught Warmouth before, but these fish are too colorful for Warmouth. I used to catch Warmouth, oh, at this body of water about a 10 minute drive from me. Warmouths look similar to redeye, or technically a rock bass, marked differently.