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[Sam]

what exactly is a black perch? never heard the term before.

Black perch is what green sunfish are called in the Ozarks, especially by the old-timers. They make tasty little filets. I've got an eight-inch mark on the handle of my light spinning outfit. Under that length, bluegills, black perch, and goggleyes (rock bass) go back in the lake, over that length they go in the grease.

[Andrew Schaefer]

i see, we just call em' greenies, they rarely get big enough to eat here in Iowa but I've caught some bigguns down on table rock.

[Sam]

I like to catch "black perch" (green sunfish) if they're big enough. They're scrappy little fighters on an ultralight, and about the first of June the big ones come up near rocky banks spawning. Going along those banks throwing a 1/8 oz. Roostertail in front of the boat provides a lot of action, and it's a break from trying to outsmart the bass.

I think the "perch" family panfish species around here sometimes cross. Here's a photo of a couple of about 9-inchers I caught a couple of years ago. The one at the bottom is a "black perch" (green sunfish). The one at the top I'd say must be a green sunfish/bluegill cross hybrid.

[Andrew Schaefer]

Its funny you should mention hybrids Sam. I major in Fisheries management in college and just the other day we were talking about the various sunfish hybrids. Its pretty common for members of the sunfish family to hybridize, especially Green Sunfish and Bluegills. Its pretty difficult to know exactly what you have when you catch one because they will back-cross giving you a fish thats mostly one species or another. The appearance of the fish also depends on the sex of the contributing species.

[Sam]

One version of the green sunfish/bluegill cross is raised commercially, because they're purposely hybridized and sold by hatcheries for stocking ponds.

In that cross, I don't remember which species has to be the male and which the female, but the result is a "mule". All the hybrid offspring are sterile males. The advantage of that is, in a pond they grow rapidly and provide good fishing quickly but they can't reproduce. That keeps a pond from becoming overcrowded with stunted little panfish in a few years.

[Andrew Schaefer]

the most common cross in commercial hatcheries is female GS X male BG. They aren't sterile but the offspring are around 80-90% male so there is reduced overall reproductive capacity. They still reproduce but since there aren't many females it will be at a much lower rate. A lot of farm ponds have bluegill overpopulation problems, but in most cases that problem can be more easily fixed with good predator mangement and increased bluegill harvest than going out and buying some heinz 57 fish.