This is like a college-level sunfish identification series, for free on RU-vid. Thanks for all the work you did gathering this information and assembling it for us to learn!
@@KNFishingSmarts a pair of jewel cichlid/salvini cichlid hybrid pair 3 male firemouths and 1 single republican male longear sunfish. what do you think 😊
This video is a life-changer. You should do a "male vs female" video for Bluegill. I think that will help a lot of anglers (especially with conservation/trophy efforts). Release those big males!
That has been something I've been mulling around with. I want to get some more video of some of the sneaker and satellite males to compare against parental males. But you've convinced me to put that one on the project list! Thanks much.
I just stumbled across your channel because I was doing some research on having a "native" aquarium and I really walked away with a wealth of knowledge. Even though long ears aren't native to my area I think they are the coolest looking sunfish out there.
Glad to have helped you! Yeah...the longear males in breeding colors can just be amazingly colorful and vibrant. Good luck with your native-fishes tank!
I like how how detailed your videos are. I subbed. I download many of your vids and store them offline to use as a backup guide when I'm fishing without cell signal coverage (hope you don't mind). I'd like to see guides on choosing swivel/barrel sizes, bobber sizes, weights (ie splitshot, egg, bullet, dipsey, etc), standard plastic jigs with weighted hooks (often painted with a colored eye; and how to tie, rig and use/jig them), how to choose fishing line size (ie lbs poundage of line based on what folks are fishing for) and how to use lighter poundage line to catch heavier species of fish without the line breaking, how and when to use plastic beads on fishing line and which colors/sizes to use, how to select a fishing pole based on length and thickness, how to choose fishing reels based on size of the reel and what can be gotten away with for larger species of fish,... I mention these because of how detailed you are and how you would do these topics justic without recommending products just to make money on promotions from select companies. An exotic fishing video that I would recommend would be on the Ka-Bar Fishing Caster (a $15 portable fisher sold on Amazon). I use this when fishing from shore or a dock with fluorocarbon line (it doesn't work well with mono or braid). It's always in my bugout bag in my vehicle and allows someone to fish practically anywhere without a pole. Hooks, weights and small lures can be stored within the hollow chamber within the fisher. I used the small resealable bags sold for storing crafting beads, sold on the craft aisle at Walmart to store hooks, weights, flies, and plastic baits and to keep them seperate. I tight a 10" piece of braided line off the bottom of the fisher to attach two, small, weighted, cigar shaped floats on to the braided line before packing it in my backpack. I've had good results with using a hook, a bead and a small bullet weight to get lengthy casts. I use the weighted bobbers and a one to two foot leader when casting flies with this pocket fisher. You mentioned that you enjoy shore fishing and this works awesome for that. I do a lot of shore fishing and occasionally from docks. I'd like to see for tutorials on fishing from shore into a lake. I live and fish mainly in North Georgia, USA. Thanks again for all the good and in-depth fishing tips and tutorials. Sincerely, Jacob 05-21-2023 @ 16:34
Appreciate the comment here, Jacob! (It's very long!) Firstly, yeah--I don't mind at all that you've download and use the vids offline; the vids are meant assist anglers. Secondly, you've given a lot of ideas for future videos. And I would enjoy addressing all of that in the future but that would not be possible. What I will do is incorporate some of your good questions into my upcoming 'How to Catch Common Sunfishes' video. I'm sure a lot of other anglers are wondering the same things you've brought up. I too enjoy shore fishing so I will do my best to incorporate some of those tactics into future videos. Thanks for sharing your tips and gear recommendation on that Ka-Bar Fishing Caster. Cheers!
Trying to get my knowledge of natives up to snuff. I can id fish from all over the world but i get stumped with natives lol. Growing up it was blue gill pumpkin seed or green....also generally known as catfish bait. Its past time for me to know better. Loved this video and will be plowing thru your others as well. Thanks a million for the awesome work.
I caught a light green (closer to a light olive green) sunfish with a large, vivid yellow chest in front of the first set of fins. The first set of fins are also a translucent yellow. The top and tail fins are like a very translucent olive green. The bottom fins are a translucent gray. Also the black dot is small like most of the sunfish but it's more square. It also has faint olive green vertical stripes but doesn't have any dots or any other stripes on it. This fish is only green and bright yellow with some white around the mouth and the black dot/ear. There were no other colors on it. I caught it in Lake Havasu.
Hmm...the only lepomids in Lake Havasu are Green Sunfish, Bluegill, and Redear sunfish. It really sounds like you have a green sunfish--or some hybrid with a green sunfish.
I will come back to this when the two young sunfish become old enough to identify. I can not wait. They were accidentally caught while teaching my daughter how to catch crayfish. Decided to take them home. Glad we did as they follow us like puppies when we walk past their 55 gallon aquarium. So cute seeing these two 1 or 2 inch sunfish swim as fast as their baby fins can go just to follow you lol. Sunnys used to be annoying to catch while fishing but wow its so neat to see how much personality they have (I never knew) and wont ever find them annoying again haha!
OHHH ALMOST FORGOT , THOSE WARMOUTH BASS ARE MONSTERS AS THEY WILL ATTACK ANYTHING . I'V CAUGHT A FEW ON 8 INCH PLASTIC WORMS . QUITE AMAZING . MAY FAVORITE TWO ARTIFICAL BAITS FOR SUN FISH ARE A 1/8 OUNCE BEETLE SPIN / GRUB / CURL TAIL IN BLACK AND A WET FLY , BLACK WITH A RED TAIL . THANKS AGAIN
@@KNFishingSmarts since you actually reply to threads. Whats your opinion on anglers intentionally fishing and pulling Bass off beds during spawn? I always felt this cant be a good thing, especially on pressured fish. Thanks!
Excellent video, I have kept several different species in Aquariums, they are very intelligent and beautiful fish that rival Cichlids in color and curiosity.
It is important to note that the northern sunfish is a relatively new species and some states still don't distinguish it from the longear. My state of Illinois, for example, does not separate the two species, but almost all "longears" from natural waters within about a 50 mile radius of Lake Michigan are northern sunfish. The easiest way to tell a northern sunfish apart from a longear sunfish is the ear flap. A longear's ear flap is significantly longer, and straight. A northern's ear flap is angled and has a red mark, similar to a pumpkinseed.
Indeed it's a relatively new separation. Perhaps the IDNR will one day recognize the northern! But yeah, that barrier between the Great Lakes Basin and the Upper Mississippi River Basin/Ohio River Basin seems to separate the northern from the longear populations. Thanks for sharing!
Please publish books and wall charts , and other fish like the bass. Have been wanting info like this forever. As a fisherman I like to know all I can . Thanks
I will keep that in mind as I have gotten a few requests for that. But I have been waiting to publish any posters/pamphlets to see if the longear species complex does indeed get broken up. There is supposedly a very large study soon-to-be published on longear.
As a lifelong fisherman and ecological consultant who does a lot of stream assessments I have to say this is a great frigging video, thanks for all the work that went into making this!
Ah, much appreciated Jeff! It definitely was a goal of mine to make the content quality enough not just for anglers but for those who work within the scientific fields doing surveys, assessments, research, etc.. I'm glad it has your approval!
Great detail when I was younger and even to this day I go to creeks to see if i can catch these overlooked colorful fish I also wade clear streams to look for log perch and darters I find these fish as exciting as catching shovel heads or bass thanks for the video 👍
Interesting! I’ve known about this video for a while, but waited to watch until I had uninterrupted time to devote to it. Well worth the wait! As a non-fishing person who has a fish allergy, I was fascinated to learn about the variety of species! Are there more fish species than, say, cat species? If so, do you have any idea why fish would be so varied? Are fish the most genetically varied creatures? Since sunfish are dispersed by range, do we have any idea how climate change is affecting them? You really do dig into the most intriguing topics! You always push my brain over into curious mode!
Hey Sarah, great questions! I'll answer as best I can. 1. Yup. There are way more fish species than cat species as there are over 35,000 species of fishes. There are more living species of fishes than all of the other species of tetrapods combined (mammals, amphibians, reptiles, + birds). Evolution of fishes is complicated but I can simplify as to why there are so many: Fishes have been around for a long time, over 450 million years, which is much a lot of time for new species to come about and there is A LOT of water on Earth that has provided constant changes in environments, of which, is a prime driver in the evolution of new species. And even though our planet's freshwater makes up less than .001% of all the water, about 43% of those 35k species are using freshwater. The constant intracontinental isolations of populations over time offer more chances for speciation events. 2. As far as fish being the 'most genetically varied creatures', I would say no. Yes, there is tremendous diversity within fishes but I believe the class of insects takes the cake, possibly even other groups of animals. 3. Climate change is affecting many species of fishes. As far as sunfish populations go, these are fairly hardy, adaptable fishes. I would imagine that, in time, they will be able to live farther north than we've seen recently. I can't see I stumbled across any specific studies on this topic. But I'm curious to look into it! Cheers! Thanks for the comment/questions!
Thank you! I get offended with folks calling us all perch or bream. I studied Ichthyology in 1994 for my biology degree. I wish this video had been available then. 👍
Great name you have there! You must be an ambassador for the species. =) And very cool about you studying ichthyology during the acquisition of your biology degree. Ichthyology is my favorite zoological field of study. Cheers!
I made a movie of my adventure catching these species across the U.S. here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Jl6N-iIfOO4.html Remember that all the individual species pages are here: www.koaw.org/sunfishes These pages show more specimens of each species so you can really see the variance between populations and whatnot. Friendly reminder that RU-vid’s Auto-Comment-Filter is active. Inappropriate language is blocked as KNFS is an all-age community. Links are blocked to prevent spammers.
Holy toledo batman! This is a very informative guide to identifying sunfish. Is there any books you recommend that have this same information? Keep up the great work and content.
Hey Shawn, well I made this guide because no field guide had all this information put together. But a great field guide for most all of North American Fresh Water fishes is the Peterson "Field Guide to Freshwater Fishes" by Page and Burr. It's a bit dated but it has all the lepomids covered fairly well and so many other species. Hope that helps a bit.
Outstanding video. Need more like this. Informative to the hilt. Placed in watch later for future reference. Again I say, outstanding. Many states parks and wildlife websites need this link on their websites.
No idea why I watched this as I’ve always just referred to any sunfish as a sunfish or a bluegill and tossed it back. But I did find it interesting actually.
Wow. Must commend you on this guide. Best compilation I have ever seen. I have caught most of these across NC and SC. Some have local nicknames including rootknocker, stumpknocker, Morgan, Robin, Redbreasts called by sex= Rooster or hen, etc. Those copperheads do not show until they get pretty big ,I never caught a smaller one. subbed
I appreciate that Paul. And yeah, that does bring up a good point that I should add a lot of the local common nicknames to these species on the website. Thanks for the idea there!
Stumpknocker is what he properly calls warmouth. Big fighter (for its size) and tasty! There's a persistent false anecdote that warmouth is a lm bass/bluegill hybrid.
Ah, great Steven. Thank you for that. I've been wanting to narrow down the regions these specimens of green with glossohyal teeth may be located. Appreciate the tip!
Where does the Coppernose Bluegill fit in the Lepomis class? There is a hatchery in Oklahoma and Kansas that has them, and while native to Florida, they have acclimated to living under the ice. I am in Northern Indiana and I brought back close to 80# of them from there to do a test to see if they will survive the winters here in Northern Indiana. I will know this Spring, but it may be an anomaly, due to our mild winter this year. Also, a Bluegill/Green Sunfish cross is commonly called a Hybrid Bluegill. There is a fish hatchery in Arkansas that is selling "Specklebelly Sunfish" which I think is a cross between a Redear Sunfish and a Northern Bluegill.
There's still a bit of ambiguity around all the subspecies declarations of bluegill. But as of now, most authorities give the coppernose bluegill a subspecies declaration of (Lepomis macrochirus purpurascens); it's still a bluegill. Most all of the places that the coppernose are introduced into will see introgression of genes between the local bluegill populations and the coppernose bluegill. I'd imagine you'll see the intraspecific mating this spring if you stocked those coppernose with the local bluegill--and they survive the winter. Good luck with your experiment!
I caught a bluegill, the last fish I expected to see in Japan, yesterday and today. First time seeing them in person. I didn’t think fish could be cute, but I guess I was wrong lol
I recently went fishing locally and caught a very pretty sunfish that i am now treating and hoping to add to my established tank. I believe i have a Pumpkinseed. Google also agrees, from me taking a pic. I just wanted to say that this video is INCREDIBLY informative. I appreciate it so much. Amazing!
Had a Warmouth I kept for over a year as a pet in 30 Gallon Aquarium. He tamed and was friendly, and was almost like a miniature dog. Very Alert and intelligent. Their Eyes Track anything That moves in a tank as Possible Food. Once tamed will eat pellets and Flakes. Quite an interesting and Rewarding Pet. Sunfish are Scrappy and very territorial. Some Rivaling Discus in Colors of Blues, Green and Turquoise. Cool Fish 🐠 when kept in Tanks Large enough to give Them Plenty of Room. Never keep them in In Smaller Tanks except When very young.
Thank you for this awesome informational video, ill be sending this to some buddies of mine that call everything a Bream . By the way I live in coastal North Carolina and we have a large population of coppernose bluegill
Thanks Matthew! And thanks for the information; I'll look into that further. The coppernose is popular to stock and it seems to be intergrading with northern bluegill populations all over. Coastal North Carolina makes sense. I know I've seen a couple pop up here in VA. Cheers man!
Outstanding presentation! Even if I'm more confused than ever. You got my sub! Where do our FL shellcracker fit into this mess? They've got to be among the biggest, if they're lepomids at all. Growing up in Cen FL, we mistakenly called redbreast shellcracker (& ate plenty of them!), since that's what some grown local guys called them on our lake. I didn't find out we were mislabeling them until well into adulthood!
Oh yeah, those specimens down in Florida get massive! Shellcracker is another common name for the redear sunfish (Lepomis microlophus). Down in the south it's more usual for people to call redear sunfish as shellcrackers. And you are right, redear (shellcracker) get to be the biggest of all lepomids along with bluegill. The largest lepomid ever caught was a redear (as far as I know.) Cheers!
@@KNFishingSmarts Yes sir, FLA record bluegill is almost 3 lbs, record redear is almost 5! I've caught some big ones, but I can't even imagine a 5 lb 'cracker!
In Austria people released the sunfish into the wild. Now they are in most big lakes in carinthia and are a big threat to our native perch. They have an extensive brood care and even attack human when you go near their nests
Thank you for this video I just found your canal and will be looking at alot more of your videos I keep alot of native Fish including the red spotted , warmouth , Bluegill , Largemouth, and mini more smaller native fishes see ya around
Wish I had seen this back in April when I caught a bunch of these and just called them Sunfish. This guy at the fishing pier was really adamant that they were Bluegill not Sunfish. I didn’t care enough to challenge him, but I’m finding it funny that ALL bluegills are Sunfish but not all Sunfish are Bluegills. So I was definitely correct while he might’ve also been correct or incorrect based on what type of Sunfish they actually were.
Oh this is to sweet. Just got into Sunfishing 2 years ago, and recently caught a Sunfish we're unsure of and don't think we've ever caught before. We think them to be Pumpkin Seeds but a friend believes Warmouth. Didn't really take photos of them though... but we did take videos. And if it's not one of those two I'd be shocked and have no idea them. We commonly catch Bluegill, Red Ears, Crappie.....
Well if you need help with the final ID then you can always take some stills from your video and post it on iNaturalist. If you tag @koaw in the description then I'll gladly help ya with that ID. Good luck with your future catches!
@@KNFishingSmarts well was kind of hoping you'd take a short peek in their current video form. It's on RU-vid. Actually even the loader image is on one. Not the best image. But we catch what I think is 5 during the video. No pressure but if that's cool, then just need to figure how to toss you a link to the video
It's a good question and isn't as easy as it sounds, especially outside of breeding season. Sexing lepomids during breeding season (late-spring to mid-fall depending on the location) is much easier. During breeding season male pumpkinseed and longear will be much more vibrant in colors compared to the females. Pumpkinseed males will have bright blue streaking along the head and brighter orange spotting and colors on the body. Male longear will show the same explosion of color with much, much red/orange in the median fins as well as longer ear flaps (typically.) The most efficient way to determine the sex is by examining the size of the urogenital opening to the anus. Females will have larger urogenital openings compared to males, most obvious during the breeding season. You'll find a supporting image on my website www.koaw.org/bluegill Look under the "Sexing Bluegill" section. Outside of breeding season, sometimes it can be very difficult to determine the sex with 100% certainty.
Welp , I'm fairly certain now that what I've called Pumpkin seed all my life is actually a long eared sunfish . And at least some I called the generic "Bluegill" were actually Red Breasts . Who says you can't learn new things . I live in the far Southwest part of Virginia , but my local drainage is the only part of the state that empties into the Tennessee river , and thus the Mississippi , which gives us a very varied species list , and I'm constantly learning new things .
Tracy, I'm glad you were able to add to your base of knowledge! You live in such a unique area for fishes! I've been wanting to head there because that's the only place in Virginia that gets all the different species of darters. I'm up north near the Potomac, so we definitely are in different drainage basins. Thanks for sharing!
Ah, I'm torn. The technical part of me is wants the split...but a part of me also likes the simplicity of just keeping 'em all as longear. And if there ever is a cheap, field-test for DNA verification of these species then I will be singing about it on this channel.
We do touch on distinguishing other centrarchids (sunfishes) from lepomids. I'm yet to produce a detailed guide on the entire family. And I do discuss more about hybrid lepomid identification more on the website. iwww.koaw.org/hybrid-lepomids Hope that helps a bit.
The banded sunfish (Enneacanthus obesus) is in a different genus than the lepomids of this guide. Hopefully by this year I can have a short little guide made for the 3 members of Enneacanthus.
I grew up fishing in Maryland and everybody just assumes that every sunfish you catch is either a bluegill or a pumpkinseed but I could always see that there were other species, although similar. This video is a big help. Thank you!!
@@KNFishingSmarts thanks love eating the fat ones but always wondering what some of them are really called. Im pretty sure we have at least half of them in Michigan.
I do have a question. How readily will these species hybridize with each other? Or are their genetics so dissimilar that hybridization isn’t possible. I live in southeastern Michigan and last year I caught such an odd looking sunfish variety that I could only speculate it was a bluegill, rock bass, hybrid...if that is even possible. This stream section has moderate current and is absolutely loaded with these two fish species, along with good populations of larger predators, and they build their spawn beds amidst each other, so I thought it possible that some milt drift is likely. I wish I could post a picture, but it doesn’t seem I have that capability.
Hey Roger. Indeed these species can hybridize with one another; lepomids are actually hybridize with each other more than most other genera of fishes. I've written up a little article that answers a lot of questions here: www.koaw.org/hybrid-lepomids Also, if you want to post fish photo for an ID (or any animal or pant) then check out iNaturalist: Here's another link explaining more. www.koaw.org/sunfishid6 You can tag me "@koaw" in the description box and it will notify me. Also you can tag me on FishAngler or FishBrain (KN_Fishing_Smarts) I think... Cheers!
You're probably referring to the common names. Each species of most all fishes worldwide have at least a handful of common names. I'll be adding synonyms of common names to the guide soon.
