It is a nice BG. It is a male fish. I'm not saying that you are wrong about that BG being 12" long, BUT if you do a proportional measurement of the angler's ring finger, the calculation says the fish is 9 3/8" to 9.5" long. I am tall 6.3" and my ring finger is 3.25" long. Measure the length of your ring finger as an example. If I give the picture and you the benefit of doubt and say the ring finger is a lengthy 3.5" a direct proportional calculation of finger length and fish length the fish is 9.4"long. In other words: The angler's ring finger goes into the length of the fish 2.7times. 3.5"x2.7 = 9.4". Your fish looks like and has features of a standard BG that is about 10" long. See next.
When one is very familiar with BG 10.5"-11" and larger,,,, the body shape of the BG in the picture above is not normal for a big male BG 11"-12" long. Big BG aka "bulls" develop a hump of muscle on the forehead and less recognized a smaller hump sometimes behind the dorsal fin as noted by the current issue of In-Fisherman magazine June2014, pg12. Look at the big bluegill pictures on Bigbluegill.com and here. You will easily notice the hump on the forehead. Your fish does not possess the characteristic shape of a "bull" male bluegill. Your fish is a male.
Here on this pond forum we have numerous experts of large fish species. When someone posts a picture of a trophy class fish of record quality, we like to see a picture of the fish lying beside a ruler to verify the true length especially when the fish does not have the correct body features for one that size of a particular species. We have numerous members here who grow and catch trophy size fish. We know what our big fish look like pretty well.
Hopefully for reference a member will provide a picture of a big "bull" male BG to show us what I am talking about. It would be even better if a ruler was included in the picture.
Last edited by Bill Cody; 05/01/14 11:37 AM.
