Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations Are these Green Sunfish?

Also, a shot of a nice LMB my son caught...he was so proud (Dad was too).

Gator - I think they are Hybrid bgill that are several generations in the process of reverting back to green sunfish. There is a lot of green sunfish genetics in those fish and a small amount of bgill genes. I would not consider those pure strain green sunfish.

That is interesting...these fish were caught out of a little pond up on the front of my place. Its about 40' x 80' and (must be) spring fed. There is no water shed nor runoff to/from the pond. I recently purchased the property - it has been fun seeing "what all is in there"...including these guys + the (1) big bass in the other picture. I have been thinking about throwing in Channel Catfish and feeding them out for fun.

Just for my learning purposes, how does "reverting back" happen?

Gator,

Excellent pictures! In years past, the Hybrid BG was strongly recommended for small ponds in Texas. Even years ago, folks recognized the limitations of these fish but still recommended them for small waters without LMB. Perhaps yours were stocked with Hybrid BG years ago. I found them in a small pond about 25 years ago, after purchasing this property, and assumed that was what happened.

Gator - Reverting back occurs each time (year) the hybrids reproduce. The individuals of each new generation of fish have genes that contain combinations of chromosomes from the parent fish. In each fish a dominance of characters or traits occurs based on gene dominace. Green sunfish characters tend to become more dominate with each successive generation. Thus each year the offspring tend to show more and more signs of the green sunfish parentage.

These are interesting photos. I'm curious what you see that helps you say these are hybrids rather than green sunfish. I've got similar fish in one of my ponds and was just assuming they were green sunfish based on this Iowa DNR page --- but if you tell me what to look for, maybe I can look closer.

http://www.iowadnr.com/fish/iafish/grs-card.html

Are you looking at the dorsal fin shape compared to the photo 01 above?

Thanks...

The green sunfish in my area have a little more blue mottling, and a lot more of the glowing fin margins. Must be hybridized... either naturally or artificially. I have heard that natural hybridization happens pretty often in smaller ponds.

Zenbasser, the typical green sunfish is more torpedo shaped.