My neighbor called and said he had hired a pond maintenance company who had put Coppernose Bluegill in his pond today.

He sent me this picture of the fish.....

I have a pretty good idea what they are but what say you?

Will he be upset when they die this Fall?

The fish in that picture are not tilapia....what do you think they are?

Don't know exactly what they are, but if I were in his shoes I'd be worried. At least tilapia won't establish, who knows about these guys!

Melanistic Alligator Gar???

Trout ready to die?

Tbar,

We have gar in our creek. However, they are smallish spotted gar and not monster alligator gar.

I have never seen one that did not have a long, developed snout - BUT I have never seen a really small one either! (Of course, if I did see a juvenile gar that DID NOT look like an adult, I would probably have misidentified it.)

The fish in your photo look like some kind of rough fish to me. IF true, then certainly NOT a species you want in a managed pond.

Are you familiar with many of the rough fish species? Usually identifying those requires some local knowledge since there are multiple similar species of buffalo, suckers, redhorse, etc.

They do look like they could be immature red drum? Are you familiar with those?

I was going to advise that you try and catch some for examination, then realized how difficult that might be - when you don't know the species!

I think better advice would be to go over with your neighbor to the "pond maintenance" company's facilities and have them dip out a few of these "Coppernose BG" for your examination!

Closest I can come is some species of gar.

The shape looks a lot like TP to me. The color is very light though. Perhaps they came out of a muddy pond?

They sure look like Tilapia to me. Can't be gar - look at the distance between their eyes and the end of their mouth. Not enough distance for a long snout.

Catch one and hold it up for a good sideways view.

I think they look like LMB.

Enlarged they don’t look like anything I recognize but probably trout

Yep! They definitely are NOT CNBG.

If they do like to float at the surface, AND I had a clear field of fire down range, I might try taking a shotgun sampling of those fish.

If you have undesirable, invasive fish in your pond, then the best time to remove them is yesterday!

Certainly, step one is to get a positive identification.

Can’t tell from the pic. Normally only predator fish will stay at the surface and patrol like that. Sunfish can look like that ( more oblong than when being still) when swimming. Even enlarged I don’t have a good guess.

Well ... don't make wait! What are they?

They look like tilapia

I see TP routinely swim just like this, just under the surface creating a wake. I'm 99% certain these are TP.

They're not a panfish. The body shape is all wrong, and look at how far back the dorsal fin is. They are some type of predator fish designed for quick burst swimming. When the dorsal fin is that far back above the anal fin almost always a predator. Body shape looks like grass carp, but with the fin placement I don't know what it is.