I also was VERY excited to see one of the kids pull in my very first longear sunfish. 2 years ago I stocked 25 each RES and LES. Not seeing any the next year, I added 25 more RES. It looks like both made it through 2 winters!
I have never seen a long ear in person. The colors seem right (lots of turquoise dots) but the ear isn't that long (maybe immature LES yet?) and do all LES have the orange on the ear tab? I thought the ear tab on LES were all black?
That looks like a hybrid LES/RES.
I wondered about hybrid too because the 'long ear' is not very long on this fish. The eyes are very red too. Perhaps this is a pure LES with red on opercular tab, red eyes and a mini-opercular tab rather than a big one. The LES posted above has the longer long-ear sized tab.
Also the chest/abdomen of this LES is very golden, more like the ones on my RES. A true LES usually has that beautiful color pattern all over the chest and abdomen too like in the picture just above this post?
The size and stocking date of these fish suggest that they have not spawned yet which also makes me wonder if no hybridization happened yet, why this one doesn't look like the 'typical' LES. However, northern pond growth characteristics may be different and I don't know the true genetic source of the 1.5" long LES I bought from Brian Zimmerman (meaning did they come from a southern source?)
