beautiful fish

The Weber Klatahatch is the same reel as Duncan-Briggs (maker). A surprising number of those reels are out there, considering they were only made 1954-5, and with their weight, a good choice for a long glass or cane rod.
I think your fish may actually be a green sunfish, Lepomis cyanellus, male in spawning color, but a fine fish - awesome color rarely seen here, and thanks for posting.
https://mountainstomarsh.com/2012/02/15 ... cies-list/

bmbailes, that shot looks like a painting.

Nice pics everyone.Such a variety,every year i catch northern strain bluegill,red ears.longears,seeds,green sunfish my favorite last season,warmouth and rock bass.,And of course their cousins ,crappies and large and smallmouth bass and a spotted or two if i get a little south.Then there is the cross breeding and natural and stocked hybrids.Always have a rod rigged for sunfish with me.Many bass or carp excursions that don't pan out often turn into great panfish days.I have tons of pics but my computer will not load the PB alternatives correctly.

don't take any of this the wrong way, but most everybody is going to prefer catching the larger species like redbreast (yellow bellies) and red-ear (shellcrackers). They just plain get big, can also have nice colors, and female shellcrackers are as territorial as the little male long-ears.
The redbreast sunfish in the top of cold Lake Austin have astounding coloration - the deepest royal blue and ruby red.

Here's a pretty red-ear male from the Pedernales headwaters - only males have the red ears.
Saw him eat the fly in fast water.

and from an oxbow a few country blocks away, a lifetime yellow-belly hen, looking like a caricature of a sunfish.
Saw this, too, when she snatched the fly away from the 5-lb bass I was sight-fishing.


For 5 or 6 years, we caught this same shellcracker hen at the same spot (literally a yards-wide window down from Wagon Wheel crossing) once/year. When you released her, she would hang at your feet to keep an eye on you and escort you out of her territory.


how about a freakishly large shellcracker hen - I'm hoping to find her again later this spring - I know exactly where to look.


The thing is, neither of those species are native to Texas - both wild fish are native to Atlantic drainages, and were introduced to Texas, and probably much of North America (both are standard fare for stocking ponds).

The thing that is so special about the diminutive native long-ears is that their individual strain markings show how special each strain is to your home water - and theirs - each strain is endemic - they won't be marked quite the same in the next river over.
If catching one of these doesn't satisfy your day, I think you're missing it.


btw Doug, your beauty green sunfish is probably native - if you check my sunfish ID link, CO is right on the edge of their range.
Most of Texas was once a coral reef. When you think about it, it's kind of cool for their coral reef ancestors to have migrated to a mile-high.

They may well be awake. In my "waking 'em up" thread, I thought my bluegill pond was a waste of time because the ice had just melted, there is no good way to cast to the middle and nothing was disturbing the water anywhere. I used a small beadhead and let it sink, and did very well. Some of them would take it on the way down. They were really pale looking after the long winter on the bottom. Looking forward to colorful fish on the surface, but it was reassuring to get a few.

I used to catch the same warmouth a few times every year.It lived in an old stove in about 15 feet of clear water.You had to have a whole nightcrawler for this fat old fish.And you had to get it to drop almost in the oven door of the stove.Every time you released him he swam down right back inside the oven.

doug in co,

You guys must have some big gills in Co to need a Landex with antireverse. Love those reels, always made me wish I could make the transition to rhw.

Barry

alas, people don't get it. Can't get Eric to add his examples to this thread - whole idea is to make a running catalog of long-ear sunfish markings

Wow, up until this thread, I thought the most gorgeous game fish was either a brook trout in spawning colors or a golden trout. Have to rethink that but the variety of the long-ears is impressive!

-Dwight

purdy fishes - thanks for playing

Could be several things...spawning time, water temps, water depth, and varying genetics

This is my favorite thread. Great to see as the snow falls.