Saw this neat webpage and liked to look at all the different types of fish this guy was catching.

If you count down from the top, the 10th picture is a Pumpkinseed. But the 12 picture, what is that? He calls it a 'Northern Sunfish' but the red eye and the red ear tab is wrong for Northern Sunfish. Also the turquoise specs all along the side make me wonder about hybrid. He later in the post catches beautiful longears. I wonder if this is a longear/Pumpkinseed hybrid?

I have a fish in my pond that is very much like this. I only have RES and LES so I always figured the red eye and red ear tab with turquoise markings makes mine a LES, RES hybrid.

But not sure they are any RES in this stream that he is fishing in.

Your thoughts?

Ben Cantrell's fishing blog




and for reference, my pond fish ID?

Maybe some Dollar sunfish in there??? I have never seen one except for pictures.

That's what I was thinking also.... stickem has those in his puddle

Looks like a PS.

http://www.web1.cnre.vt.edu/efish/families/pumpkin.html

That is a common fish up in the St. Lawrence river, lakes, and ponds of NYS. They don't get big, but feisty and pretty.

I sent the picture back to Brian Zimmerman who sold me the fish 3 years ago. He is quite positive this is a northern longear and not a pumpkinseed, or RES/LES hybrid. The turquoise coloring is quite prominent even up into the dorsal fins.

I then found Ben Cantrell posted a neat series of pictures showing the different ways longear sunfish look depending on where they were caught. There is also a northern and a 'central' type longear sunfish. The folklore is that the northern have a more 45 degree angle or upswept ear tab and the central have a straight back ear tab. His pictures and his post suggest that we should NOT be using that as a way to differentiate central from northern.

But having looked at his pictures I'm much more comfortable that I have LES (northern) in my pond and not a RES/LES hybrid. They are BEAUTIFUL fish and would love to see if they could get established in more SW MI ponds. They seem to do fine in my pond, not sure why the DEQ would not stock them in local lakes as a bonus fish for panfishing enthusiasts!

see this link and then scroll down to post 7 where the great pictures are!

Great LES sunfish pictures