Pond Boss Forums FISH & FISHING Sunfish-Including Largemouth and Smallmouth Bass Red ear spawning habits.

The red ears in our pond generally spawn a month prior to our copper nose. There are two prime spawning areas in our pond and from then on they are occupied nearly every month till fall. I have noticed some fish that looked at first glance to be green sunfish, but after further scrutiny, they are for certain red ears. At this moment I have both red ear and copper nose sharing the same bedding area, with the red ears spread out along the bank and the copper nose out further. It appears that the copper nose have staked about two thirds of the area with the red ears owning the rest. There appears to be a "unwritten" agreement on an invisible line that both species are adhering too. I typically haven't found red ear spawning this late, then again, I've not paid too much attention to them in the past.

Is this typical behavior?

Well, at least your seem to be catching some res. I very seldom catch any even though I went with very high stocking rates 4 yrs ago. But to be honest, I have not set out to catch any but would have thought I would when catching all the cnbg that I catch. As far a spawning, this year has been different at my place from prior years. I believe it was due to long winter with no spring. I am located next to Caddo lake so I can't be that far from you.

Yes it is very typical.

Interesting. I thought CNBG were much more prone to rolling spawns into the summer heat than RES. Just goes to show how much I know!

Same here...I remember catching RES off the bed as a kid around March/April, usually about the same time crappie were spawning, and never finding them again till the next year.

I had some on beds around the last full moon in my RES/SMB pond. By their size I assumed it was small males just reaching maturity, but that is just a guess.

I can rarely see any beds in my ponds till the water clears mid summer because of early algae blooms.

RES info and links