What is it?

[Troutmeister]

Was fishing the Perkiomen today and caught a bunch of these. I think they are Green Sunfish, but I've never seen them with such vivid orange tipped fins and tail. Are these just males in their spawning colors?

 

[tomgamber]

Rock bass?

 

[Troutmeister]

No definitely not.

 

[tomgamber]

Why?

 

[tomgamber]

 

[tomgamber]

Same fish without the spawning colors. Sticking with rock bass u less an actual biologist corrects me.

 

[tomgamber]

How about a Green Sunfish?

 

[Troutmeister]

I don't think that first pic is a Rock Bass. Every Rock Bass I've ever seen looked like the 2nd pic you posted. The fish pic I posted does not look like your first pic.

 

[Troutmeister]

That's what I originally said, Green Sunfish.

 

[tomgamber]

Totally missed that. Was concentrating on the pic, sorry. Looks like it. I'd say spawning colors but I don't know anything about them other than we catch a lot just like that at camp and everyone called them rock bass. Green sunny it is.

 

[brookieteeth]

first pic: blue stripes on head, olive back, body has olive cast grading to tan-orange on the flanks with scattered blue highlights, orange fins, black spot on gill not elongated, no red breast:

pumpkinseed sunfish.

there's a lot of overlap with the green sunfish, but I've never seen one with orange fins, including a dorsal fin with an orange tip.

Some sunfish species are close enough to hybridize, including the pumpkinseed and green sunfish.

link for that pic: https://portal.ct.gov/DEEP/Fishing/Freshwater/Freshwater-Fishes-of-Connecticut/Hybrid-Sunfish

second pic is definitely a rock bass. Red eyes. Smallmouth sometimes have red eyes; rock bass always do. I've never seen another sunfish species with red eyes.

 

[dc410]

They original photo is definitely a Green Sunfish. They quite often have orange on the tips of their fins and tail. I’m not sure about the coloration due to spawning.

 

[Swattie87]

They original photo is definitely a Green Sunfish. They quite often have orange on the tips of their fins and tail. I’m not sure about the coloration due to spawning.

View attachment 1641230995

+1. The OP is a Green Sunfish. No question.

Tom your second fish is a Rock Bass.
Not sure on the first one, though I don’t think it’s a Rock Bass. Hybrid Sunfish of some kind is my guess, with Green Sunfish being one of the parents, explaining the overall shape and larger mouth size relative to body.

 

[Swattie87]

Tom - I think your first fish may be a highly colored Warmouth. Caught in PA?

Warmouth x Green Sunfish hybrid?

 

[jifigz]

That ain't no rock bass. No sir, it ain't so it ain't.

 

[Bamboozle]

Excluding rock bass they're all "sunnies" to me...

 

[bigjohn358]

I always called them green sunfish.

 

[jifigz]

Green sunfish are highly invasive, aren't they? But what isn't these days, ya know?

 

[jifigz]

Oh, and Tom Gamber ..... Your chart isn't right. Redear is a shell cracker and not a pumpkinseed.

 

[Striperbobby]

Was fishing the Perkiomen today and caught a bunch of these. I think they are Green Sunfish, but I've never seen them with such vivid orange tipped fins and tail. Are these just males in their spawning colors?

It’s a warmouth sunfish