Looking in a book with bass, bluegill, and sunfish photos and descriptions...
Under the bass section, a rock bass would fit the description, if it had red eyes. If not, maybe a juvie warmouth bass. Under the sunfish catagory, of which family the bluegill is (Lepomis), seven varieties are shown, including the 'gill'. Body shape ranges from the hand-shaped bluegill to half-gill/half-bass body. All fins are similar and have 10 spines on the dorsal fin, both bass and sunfish, and have the 'ear'. The most 'bassy' looking mouth areas belong to the green sunfish, the redbreast sunfish, and the spotted sunfish. The green sunfish has a lot of color and a mouth that extends to below the middle of the eye, and a pronounced gill flap spot. So this is probably the 'Frankenfish'. Distribution is from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, the entire Miss valley & Midwest. One alternate name (local name) is the 'sand bass'. Also, the spotted sunfish is similar, but lacks the flashy coloration. DonO ----- Original Message ----- From: Mark Wendt <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Thursday, July 11, 2002 8:45 AM Subject: Re: [VFB] FrankenGill > Jamieson, > > Not sure. Never seen this kind of fish here before. Wasn't any > green on the fish, though, not sure if that makes a difference. Body had > the same coloration typical of a regular blue gill. Also, the fins didn't > look much like gill fins, more like bass fins. > > Mark > > > At 09:29 AM 7/11/2002 -0500, you wrote: > > > Mark, I'm not sure but green sunfish look like a bluegill with a big > > mouth. So that could be? > > > > Jamieson >
