Just curious but what is the likelihood these days of accidentally getting this fish from a fish farm? Only reason why I ask is that I just stocked the lake with another 500 jumbo bluegills and this fish is pretty much identical in size to those. I purchased the fish from a large management company in Texas who own their own fish trucks, they told me they got them from a fish farm in Arkansas. Were green ear sunfish ever a recommended or desirable species to put in ponds? I know whoever stocked the original stock tank on my property put in crappie (1/2 acre tank) and today that wouldn't be advised, especially on that size body of water. We have been actively removing the bass and crappie from that pond by angling them out. During a heavy rain it would technically be possible for fish to wash into my larger tank but it would also be a difficult journey. The end goal of the original tank is to make it into a catfish pond.

We did put in 3 minnow traps (funnel kind) when trying to sample the bluegill population earlier this year to figure out what was left after the cormorant invasion. We caught a few 1" bluegills but didn't see any larger fish coming to the feeders. This is why it was decided to stock jumbo bluegill so that portion of the food chain could be replenished before adding bass fingerlings. Didn't catch any green ears.

We are very close to the Colorado river, I have caught several green ear sunfish there when collecting catfish bait. My guess is one of these other land owners likely went and bucket stocked from the Colorado and ended up with green ears in his pond. They probably then made their way into my pond during our heavy rains last year and managed to avoid being eaten by the cormorants.

I'm going to head out this evening with a buddy, and we are going to fish the pond pretty hard with light tackle to see if we can catch anymore.