Originally Posted By: sprkplug
I can't tell if there's scale tipping or not... Small opercular... not overly dark coloration on the chest... unable to tell if nose projection present...fish appears "tall" however...size appears to indicate maturity....overall coloration washed out...

Once again, I go with female.

Tony, I really enjoy and appreciate your contribution regarding evaluation of characteristics of CNBG.

I don’t consider sex ID important to our program because of my culling program. Everything between 5 and 7 inches is culled and this is the most difficult sizes to determine sex for me.

I agreed with your female ID but was puzzled of coloration. I didn't measure or put it into live well to darken but would have helped, but since this has been more of an academic exercise for me, I did not bother. IMO “tallness” is an inherent characteristic of Overton’s CNBG - they appear to get “taller and broader when they approach 9 inches - I seldom see more than 10 inch CNBG these days.
I don’t know if Todd uses this characteristic in selection of brood stock.

Anyway, I ran this CNBG sex ID past Todd Overton - here is his response:

“This one looks like a male to me. We see this out of semiturbid water on our OTS.
Has a dark breast and opercular tab placement and size (should grow more) indicates male.”

Like Todd said in earlier post - "sex ID of OTS CNBG can be "tricky" for immature fish."


N.E. Texas 2 acre and 1/4 acre ponds
Original george #173 (22 June 2002)