Pond Boss Forums FISH & FISHING Show off your catch My First Bream Harvest

It's been almost four years in the making but last Sunday was the first time I consistently caught enough filet size to make it worth the effort. These are all 7.25 to 8.50 inches and as best I can measure all 90-100% relative weight.
I can identify 2 RES and maybe 4 BG with all certainty. Looking for expert opinions on how many of these are crosses.

Lot of hybrids, great looking fish!

Great job!! Thanks for sharing! Hope to get that one day! You catch them all or have help??

Got them by myself in about 3 hours. The first half on a cadis fly and rest on berkley gulp.

I'm no expert but it looks like a number of those hybrids could be RES hybrids. Look at the mottled area behind/below the eye on the gill flap. Those look very RES'ish to me yet those fish do not have the red/orange opercular flap. Yet I see no GSF in them.

Possible RES/BG hybrids?????

Nice catch.

This is a 2 acre pond stocked with 700 CNBG and 300 RES. The BG were small 2" and less, and the RES were 4" or bigger. I know I had a spawn the first spring. Since they had so much room to grow and the RES were dominate in size, they had a disproportionate influence on the gene pool.

I thought the same thing when I saw all these fish together. I can only discern two red "ears" but other than that they look alot like RES.

That is a cross I would not mind having.

I have been getting what I think are RES/GSF crosses. I think maybe I will be to identify them better after the get some size. Most of them that I have see have only been in the 2-3" range, so it is hard to tell for sure for me.

I will be interested in how your pond progresses with the hybrids. For some reason weird fish fascinate me.

Yes, there are a lot of BG X RES hybrids in the photo. Some BG also.

Very interesting pic. The colors in the pic are unusual. can you describe what you saw? Do you by chance have pics of the gill rakers?
Some apparent BG and RES and a lot of others. Where did you get the fish ?

I think some of color is due to the fact that they had been on ice for a while. The initial stock all came from Kevin at Southeast Pond Stocking. These fish are not fed. I guess what struck me most is the shape of some of them. They are shaped more like perch than sunfish. Is this an indication of anything? Age, maturity, growth rate, stunted?

I don't have any other pictures of these but hope to get some more in the next couple of days. What would I be looking for in the gill rakers?

A good clear pic of gill rakes on the different fish (BG , RES and mixed/other).

Fish shape in lepomis/sunfish is determined/effected by several factors. These include species ,genetics , environment and adaptation.

Do you think these fish are part of the original stockers or do you think they are from a subsequent genreation?

I would assume they are from a subsequent generation and are natural hybrids from the original stockers. But if you think they are from the original stockers then you likely got a bunch of hybrids mixed in with the pure RES and CNBG.

Have you caught any larger fish than the ones pictured? If so it might indicate these are from a later generation. I also assume you have not been feeding these fish? Their size is from natural food sources only?

Every fish that has red or orange on their ear tab has RES genes in them if the only panfish in the pond are BG/RES. Anything with mottling on their cheek also has RES blood. (unless there are other panfish species in the pond, i.e. GSF)