warmouth
 

I think I never caught them before, any places to fish for them? How big are they?

Re: warmouth
 

They are everywhere...... all over in the passaic with rock bass....

Re: warmouth
 

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Tough question. Common names for panfish can get confusing. I did a Google search for "warmouth" and I'm even more confused than I was before.

If you mean Lepomis gulosus. Here's a map of their range.
http://nas.er.usgs.gov/queries/facts...?SpeciesID=376

http://nas2.er.usgs.gov/viewer/GetSt...&speciesid=376
I'm not sure I've ever seen one of those.


If you mean the Rock Bass (Ambloplites rupestris, Ambloplites constellatus) they are all over. They attach themselves to every bait and lure in the evening in the Delaware River. I also catch a lot of them at Merrill Creek Reservoir, especially around the rip rap dams.

http://www.roughfish.com/~roughfis/s...es/pan_rkb.png

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_bass

Re: warmouth
 

those are green sunfish, not warmouth. they are pretty similar looking however. they are invasive and it is technically illegal to release them back into the water... kill-on-catch is mandated. at this point though, there is no going back with them, the populations are too well situated.

Re: warmouth
 

i like sunfish. around here, our usual suspects (and the identifying characteristic i use to tell them apart) are the bluegill (black spot behind gill, olive body), pumpkinseed (prominent greenish/blue spot pattern on sides, tiny mouth), redbreast sunfish (bright red belly, larger mouth) and the green sunfish (green spots, larger mouth). of these, red breasts give the best fight pound per pound, IMO.

sometimes the males and females of the species will look different. with bluegills for example, males get an orangey belly and females get more of a beige/cream colored belly. male redbreasts have a brighter red belly than the females as well. i find it harder to tell the difference with pumpkinseeds.

even more confusing, most members of the lepomis genus will easily hybridize. so you might end up catching a pumpkin-gill or a greenseed. they look pretty much like you'd expect, somewhere in between the two source species. however they don't always act in-between... bluegill-redbreast sunfish hybrids are some of the largest and hardest fighting panfish in northern NJ. in the places where i can catch them regularly, they are much larger than either the regular bluegills or the redbreasts... averaging 10-11" while straight bluegills go 8-9" and redbreasts 6-7" in the same body of water. the difference in size could be a hybrid vigor type of thing (like with tiger muskies or splake), or they could just be better suited to the locations than the parent species are on their own. either way, i find it interesting.

rock bass are in a different genus and don't really look like these other sunnies

Re: warmouth
 

If you are intent on catching a warmouth or a green sunfish then you can catch them right across the street from AMC Clifton Commons movie theatre in the little pond/waterfall/stream that is there.... its called kingsland lake (its a small pond) with small waterfall its right on kingsland rd in Clifton NJ..

Re: warmouth
 

i had a PM asking about those hybrid fish, here are a couple pics to differentiate them

this is a typical adult female bluegill. note the shape of the fish (how tall it is vs how long), and the round black gill flap's location.
http://www.tombeauchamp.com/misc/fishing/female-bg2.jpg

this is a typical adult male bluegill. same body shape as the female, but different coloring. the slightly red belly under the chin ends before the pelvic fins.
http://www.tombeauchamp.com/misc/fishing/male-bg.jpg

this is a typical adult redbreast sunfish. note the shape of the fish is different from the bluegill (the redbreast is 'shorter'), the red eye, the pronounced red coloration of the belly extending all the way to the anal fin, the red scales pattern speckling on the sides, and the shape of the black gill flap which sticks out from the gill a bit before the darker coloring begins and is long and oval.
http://www.tombeauchamp.com/misc/fishing/rb.jpg

this is a hybrid bluegill / redbreast sunfish. note that it is shaped like a bluegill, has an eye like a bluegill, but has the red belly and speckling of the redbreast, and that the gill flap is huge - a combination of the shape/size of the two parent species that starts out a ways from the gill.
http://www.tombeauchamp.com/misc/fis...-rb-hybrid.jpg

i'll have to see if i can dig up good pictures of the other types of hybrids that you can run across

Re: warmouth
 

Man I haven't heard of warmouth since I was up in NH in college. I use to catch them all the time in small ponds and what not on small cranks and inline spinners and like others have said they are invasive. To be honest it could be pretty difficult at time to tell them apart from of the hybrid sunfish/bluegill/green sunny. There pretty neat looking though but it wouldn't hurt that where ever you think your catching them to report it to F&W. They do a lot of research to prevent these species but also rely on fisherman reports to help identify problem areas.

Re: warmouth
 

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acabtp, great post. Thanks.

Re: warmouth
 

Thanks acabpt, great pictures and descriptions. We always lumped them all together and just called them sunnies. They can be a lot of fun to catch with a fly rod on ponds.

Re: warmouth
 

So what species of sunfish you guys catch in New Jersey?

Re: warmouth
 

Bluegill, pumpkinseed, redbreast and green. Green sunfish are a cool fish to put in a fish tank. I have one in mine right now. They have big mouths and will take down small shiners, kind of like oscars. When I worked for the DEP up in CT we had a green/pumpkin hybrid in a tank that was 12oz and it would take down 5" shiners...thing was a badass!

Re: warmouth
 

Grew up on lake Musconetcong, waaay back in the Port Morris section we usta catch what we called Rock Bass. Kinda looked like a cross between a smallmouth and a sunfish with a red eye...sound familiar? never really knew what they were but they were a awful lot of fun to catch.

Re: warmouth
 

Rock bass are also known as goggle-eye, I think. I've caught a few over the years, they are fun.

Re: warmouth
 

I caught 106 warmouth in a small pond in Central NJ this year including 22 in one day. The longest that I ever caught there was 10". I applied for a NJ Skillful Angler Catch and Release Sunfish Award but was rejected because the biologist said that my fish was a warmouth, not a green sunfish. NJ Fresh Water Fish Biologists are very good. I'll try to post a pic of my catch of warmouth and a green sunfish. http://s865.photobucket.com/user/NJ2...ml?sort=3&o=24

Re: warmouth
 

:eek: yeah, those are definitely not like anything that belongs here... some bucket biologist must have introduced them to that pond. :mad:

catch and keep as many as you can before they spread to other waters. what does that pond drain into?

Re: warmouth
 

just looked on a map where that is and i guess it's not that surprising, there are all sorts of invasives in the Big D these days... sigh...

Re: warmouth
 

Sure would be nice if the snakeheads and flathead catfish would eat those.