Maryland Sunfish at Sunset

[Johnsfolly]

Wasn't able to edit my photos when I was in Maryland earlier in the month. So this post is a little late. I fished Tuckahoe Lake, a small lake upstream from the stream that I fished the last time in Maryland. I had about an hour and 45 minutes before dusk. I was originally hoping to catch a few crappie. So I had a small jig about 14 " under a float. I was fishing the corner of the lake. There was a fair amount of vegetation along the bank. So I fished a gap in the vegetation. There were pumpkinseed sunfish bedded right along the bank. I had caught that species before, but did not have any photos. So I was hoping to catch at least on pumpkinseed on this trip. The first few casts only got small taps and no hook sets. I even tried a couple of the pumpkinseed, but they just grabbed the tail end of the jig and never got to the hook. So I switched to a John Deere microjig and fished it without the float. I hooked up to a decent redear sunfish almost as soon as the bait hit the water. What was unusual about this fish was that the fins and belly were very dark.

I caught several more redear and all were this dark coloration. The fishing was fast and furious with a fish each cast. I also caught several nice bluegill that were also dark in their coloration.

After I made two or more casts without getting a strike I moved along the bank to the next spot that had an opening in the vegetation. There as a large tree in the water and I could see sunfish swirling all around this cover. This spot yielded mostly bluegill and a couple of redear sunfish.

 

Again once the fishing slowed down I moved locations. I ended up next to a dock and got back into the redears. They ranged from 8 to 11 inches in length and the males were so darkly colored that they looked like a different species than those I catch here in MO.

I kept fishing until I could not really see well enough or light enough to get good photos. I ended up with 18 redear, 20 bluegill, and 3 pumpkinseed sunfish. I finally got a decent picture of the last pumpkinseed that I caught just at last light using a gold 1/125 oz jig head.

I couldn't have asked for a better way to spend a wonderful evening on a very productive lake. Never did catch a crappie, but no regrets.

[JestersHK]

Nice colors on those fishes.   Wonder why they all seem so dark,  and those red ears do almost look like they have crappie pattern to them.

Glad you can get out and do some fishing even though you're away from home.  looks like a beautiful little spot there. 

[Johnsfolly]

JHK

The water has a fair amount of tannin stain to it. I've been wondering if that affects the color of these fish. The bluegill also were darker than I find around here as well. Regardless I thought they looked pretty spectacular.