Saw this on another forum. Kind of looks like a hybrid to me.

I believe that fish has been declared a RES. Still a monster to be proud of.

RES would have been my guess as well.

Yeah RES makes sense.

to close to camera

to close to camera

The photographer of the "record fish" definitely used the process we love here on Pond Boss known as the Condello Technique.



(Less than 1 oz., and about 2-inches, nose to tip of tail)

Still, it does appear that the guy caught a pretty good sized fish. I'd be real happy to catch a sunfish of that size.

that sob is huge

what did the res weigh?

What a freak of a fish!

5.5 lb RES

That is one very large RES... I wonder how long it is? A female full of eggs I guessing.

Caught on rubber worm while bass fishing.. Absolutely awesome fish..

When an RES is big enough to be caught on a bass worm you know it's big!

16.75" long, girth was 19". What a fish.

Hopefully the 750 RES I put in last year get to 1/5th the size of that thing

Probably beats the old record by a couple pounds... Don't know anything about Lake Havasu, I wonder what the characteristics of it that made it able to produce such a massive RES?

Im pretty sure the old record was over 5lbs too

Good advertising for BPS too. Johnny M. is probably smiling.

I hear that the lake contains a large population of asiatic shellfish, one report stated they were quagga mussels, another claimed the more common zebra mussel. Whatever the case, apparently RES find them delicious!

Be careful Cat - you'll get moderated .... I can't believe you said that ...

Yes, the old record was 5 pounds, 5.5 ounces. The new record listed as 5.55 pounds would be 5 pounds, 8.8 ounces. So roughly 3 ounces more than the previous record. It seems to grow GIANT RES, a steady supply of tasty shellfish in needed...

Sprkplg is right - it's generally being accepted that invasive bivalve introduction to Havasu are responsible for the accelerated growth. I also read that Drum and Blue cats love Zebra and Quaggas. While it's negative impact on the ecosystem is well founded, at least there's some benefit from introduction of these mussels - we could be seeing some huge fish coming down the pike. I don't think 5.5 lbs is the top range for RES with that much available forage protein with little to no effort expend energy to stalk and ambush. A RES could literally sit on a reef of these things and not move more than a fin all day. Sounds appealing, actually!

I also read where the specific area of the lake where this fish was caught had undergone treatment for excessive weed growth. Some folks are claiming that the nearly bare lake bottom in that spot had made for some easy pickins' for the RES. I heard there have been other large specimens taken there recently.

Of course, a redear of that magnitude probably wouldn't have obtained that size in just a year or two's foraging, no matter how few weeds were present.

Still, it does give one pause to wonder..

The previous world record was caught in an area that had recently been invaded by Asiatic clams. Certainly seems non native molluscs are key to growing record size RES. Before anyone gets any ideas of stocking any of these species, research the risks closely... The idea of stocking Asiatic clams on here has been talked about in the past in previous threads.

I guess that fish is a redear. It certainly doesn't look like anything else.

It actually looks like a BG X RES hybrid to me. I have a lot of those hybrids in my pond and they all have that "brown" edge on the gill flap like the one in the picture. The pure RES always have a red or orange edge.

If you guys would like to hear Robert Lawler describe his catch, check out Fish Schtick podcast. Listened to it yesterday and it's great hearing a fish story from the fisherman himself. Very well described.