Longear Sunfish In Kansas City Vicinity?

[swellcat]

Longear sunfish (Lepomis megalotis) must be among the prettiest fish in freshwater.

Can someone mention where they can be found in catchable numbers in Missouri, especially near the Kansas City area? Not looking to deplete anyone's honey hole but to maybe help a friend there catch a few male longears for her aquarium.

Thanks.

[Kayser]

Any stream or lake with a predominately sandstone gravel bottom, with sandy patches here and there for spawning. Hope this helps.

Rob

[drew03cmc]

Longear are native in the Wakarusa River, and I have caught 2 below Clinton Lake in Lawrence.

[shaker]

Been fishing around the area for nearly 50 years and have never seen one, lots of other sun fishes including redears but no long ears. That doesn't mean that they're not hear, I just haven't seen one on the Mo. side.

[Al Agnew]

According to the range map in the book "The Fishes of Missouri", they are not native to the area around KC. The closest streams where the map shows them to be found is the Lamine River and all its tributaries in the Sedalia area. However, they are very common in those streams, so just about any creek you come upon to the south and east of Sedalia should be full of them.

Their range in MO coincides exactly with the boundaries of the Ozarks--they live in clear, sand or gravel bottomed streams. However, oddly enough they are also common in the Southeast MO bootheel.

I agree that they are one of the prettiest freshwater fish. I've got several in my aquarium right now that have been thriving for more than a year, and are now adult size (they were only 2 inches or so when I put them in). A couple are males and they are very colorful. They do very well in aquariums and eat tropical fish flakes readily, but sometimes they get really aggressive with other fish in the aquarium. Mine have been coexisting quite well with the bluegill that are sharing the aquarium with them, but they ate the last couple of Ozark minnows and redbelly dace I put in. I'm going to have to remove them if I want to keep some of the smaller minnows anymore.

My friend Bob Todd recently furnished me with three pirate perch he trapped in a small creek near Piedmont. One of them died, but the other two are doing well. They are interesting fish and of limited distribution in MO...these were the first I'd ever seen. They seem to be very nocturnal, only coming out when it's dark and all the lights are off. Otherwise they hide under the rocks. The longears and bluegill don't seem to bother them.

[swellcat]

Thanks for replying to this thread.

We caught some pretty green sunfish on the fly last Summer in Smithville. For three inch fish, they sure were ambitious.

Eagle Mountain Lake just west of Fort Worth has longear sunfish. They hang out in the dam rocks and will hit at night. Discovered that while drifting cut shad for catfish. Kept getting machine gun runs with no hook ups. Switching to a tiny hook on one pole revealed the little red and blue culprits.