I found this picture on an ice fishing website I frequent. Bluegills in my region are not this bright in the winter. My guess is this bluegill came from a body of water where the diet is high in carotene i.e. zooplankton, invertebrates etc.?
I believe this photo was taken in Massachusetts. As I kid I used to fish a lake there that had incredibly large size zooplankton that were active in winter. You could visually see them in your ice fishing hole. The trout stomachs were packed with them.
Thoughts?
