redbreasted sunfish on the left, pumpkinseed sunfish in the middle and redbreasted sunfish in the back right

pumpkinseed sunfish

bluegill left, redbreasted sunfish right

tessellated darter

bluegill left, pumpkinseed right

Redbreasted sunfish

I am fairly sure this is a spotted bass based on the coloration and rear of the jaw to eye location... However, the river it was collected from does not have a documented spotted bass population. Any ideas?


Where are those rosy reds? I'm hungry!

My two lake chubsuckers in the rear and a pumpkinseed sunfish in the front.

More chubsuckers and pumpkinseed

Even the spotted bass and lake chubsucker gets along, for now that is...


Hopefully the lake chubsucker will keep up with the bass's growth so he doesn't become a menu item!

The bass and sunnies like the "structure"

It does look like a spot. One of the keys is a connected dorsal fin but can't really tell it from your pics. However, I'm certainly no expert on them. They are readily identifiable at a larger size. We have them in several lakes here and in one river we have a cousin, the Guadalupe bass. I can't tell those 2 apart just by casual eyeballing.

Cj, can you stand back from the aquarium and take a photo of the overall tank? I'd like to see the entire tank. It looks great, very natural looking.

I'm pretty impressed.

CJ, I have to agree with Dave... We call those Guadalupe Bass in South Texas. It has to be a very close cousin.

Gee, your pond is sooo clear!

cj if it came from around you you are limited on what subspecies it can be. Not SMB not LMB so not guadalupe (TX) or SHoal (GA< FLA), not redeye(AL< TN<AL) and not SUwanee( GA< FLA). SO I believe you have no choice but to conclude spotted bass. Micsopterus punctulatus.

Nice aqaurium, looks like BPS.

http://assets.espn.go.com/winnercomm/outdoors/bassmaster/pdf/Slam_Web_Species.pdf
link to bass slam challenge species id.

what a great tank cj, thanks for sharing.

everytime i mention doing that, DWIED rolls her eyes, but i bet she'll come around.

for me also its hard to tell w/ the fish that young, but spots do have a rough patch (usually dark colored) in the middle of their tongue.

Nice selection!

How big is the bass?

My fish ID book says that you can't go with the mouth being in front of the eye on a juvenile bass. Juvenile LMB will also have the mouth in front of the eye.

Chris is right. My ichthyology prof threw us a curveball on a lab quiz. Had a juvenile lmb that most of us id'd as a KY spot bass because the the jaw line did not extend past the eye. We were all wrong and should have checked for the tooth patch. The tongue of a spot bass has a small rectangular tooth patch whereas the lmb does not have the tooth patch. Dip him out of your tank and take a peak at it's tongue.

When you're done, flush him down the toilet and replace with a GSF. Then......just maybe, JHAP will hook you up with a GSA t-shirt.

CJ, great looking aquarium , let's see a picture of the whole thing.
If you add a water cooler I'll send you some little BRKT.

The bass is about 3.5" to 4" in length now. I am not sure I can get my finger into his mouth to check the tongue patch. When I caught him he was much smaller and it definitely wasn't possible then. He also had the tricolor tail that a SMB or spot would have, that is what really leads me to think its a spot. I'll give him some more time to grow and see how he turns out. I have a good bit of room in the tank for growth. I am trying to find a fingerling crappie or two for the tank next. The one year I want one I cannot find any!

AP, water temps run between 74-78 usually so no brook trout for me. I used to keep a bunch of smaller stream dwelling fish like minnows, shiners and darters in there. The coolest fish I had were Potomac Sculpins. Those things had mouths as big as their bodies! To get a water cooler big enough to keep that bad boy cool would be around 3k. Maybe some day...

I'll try to get a full aquarium picture tomorrow morning when I get home from work.

Yes - too cool Travis. I love the looks of the chubsucker - striking lateral line - and the darter is very cool. Find those all locally? Very cool tank setup - I'm impressed!

All the fish were caught locally except for the chubsuckers which I got from Todd.

Looks like a juvenile largemouth to me. The teeth on the tongue is a good test but not foolproof. A small percentage of largemouth will develop a similar patch, especially in areas that have both LMB and SB present.

Here are some of my fish. I have about a dozen Redfin darters and two slender madtoms.

A male is on the right and a female in the middle. One of the madtoms is above the female darter.

The eastern drainages don't have many pretty darters compared to the Mississippi drainage. About the prettiest I have collected is the greenside darter and the rainbow darter in the Potomac but most ichthyologists think both species were introduced there. Madtoms are neat little fish, they make great aquarium fish. They have the appetite of a bullhead but don't get too big too fast like bullheads will...

At your request...


Good morning!


The aquarium lights are on a timer... I think it'd look better when the actual aquarium lights are on. I'll try to get one with the lights on in the next couple days.

Thanks CJ, very nice aquarium set up. It looks almost identical to the one I had many years ago.

It's very peaceful... I like to just sit in my recliner and watch it for hours. Good way to unwind after a stressful night at work.

I want one. How many gallons is your big aquarium.

125 gallons

I used to have a 125 gal. But mine was filled with South American Cichlids. I have really been wanting to do a native fish tank. I guess I will have to wait till i have my own place.