Pumpkinseed?

[Johnsfolly]

20 minutes ago, snagged in outlet 3 said:

The rest are too

I would accept sunnies ! Not perch, black perch, bream, ....

[MOPanfisher]

I grew up with the name black perch.  Never though twice about it, still don't even though I know better.  Sunfish is a super generic catch all, but it does catch them all, from "perch" to crappie to the species of black "bass".  We used to call time spent catching the various bluegill, green sunfish, and long ears as "perch jerking".

[1farmer]

I've read this whole thread and looked at all the pictures. I don't understand why all the fuss. All I've seen are bream, black perch, and pumpkinseed.

 

 

[Al Agnew]

I don't care what you call them, but it does drive me nuts when people don't know and apparently don't care what the true species names are.  I still call all three species of rock bass goggle-eye, but I know they are northern rock bass, Ozark bass, and shadow bass.  True pumpkinseeds don't live in MO (there have been, I think, two recorded instances of them being collected in far northern MO).  

Maybe it's because I've been a realistic wildlife artist for a LONG time, but it does sometimes surprise me how rare it is for the average person to see the details that differentiate one species from another.  It ain't that difficult to tell the difference between bluegill, longear sunfish, redear sunfish, and green sunfish.  Nor is it that difficult to tell the difference between warmouth and the rock bass species.  Once you get into the slightly more obscure species you MIGHT actually catch in MO, like orange-spotted and red-spotted sunfish, I can understand the confusion.  Dollar sunfish are fairly easy to tell from longear IF you simply look at the ear flap, which will have light blue markings on the dark background while the longear has a solid dark background.

I grew up calling bluegill bluegill...bream or brim is more of a southern term for them.  Longears were sunperch, green sunfish were black perch, though many of my friends called them pond perch.  There really weren't many redear around the places I fished when I was a kid, but the first thing I ever heard them called was shellcrackers.

 

[Johnsfolly]

6 hours ago, Al Agnew said:

There really weren't many redear around the places I fished when I was a kid, but the first thing I ever heard them called was shellcrackers.

Al with snails making up a part of their diet, shellcracker at least reflects what redear sunfish eat. Hear that name used a lot in Georgia for redears. So I get that name. Still prefer redear.

I was talking with a buddy of mine in Columbia that caught a large silver redhorse. To him it wasn't a true redhorse because it didn't have the red dorsal, pectoral, pelvic, and caudal fins. So it was just a yellow sucker. 

[Al Agnew]

15 hours ago, Johnsfolly said:

Al with snails making up a part of their diet, shellcracker at least reflects what redear sunfish eat. Hear that name used a lot in Georgia for redears. So I get that name. Still prefer redear.

I was talking with a buddy of mine in Columbia that caught a large silver redhorse. To him it wasn't a true redhorse because it didn't have the red dorsal, pectoral, pelvic, and caudal fins. So it was just a yellow sucker. 

Yeah, I use the correct names of most of them these days, except for goggle-eye, since it is such a universally Ozark name for the rock bass species.  There is certainly a lot of confusion with fish names.  "Black bass" are actually members of the sunfish family.  Spotted bass are so often called Kentucky bass, or even Kentucky spotted bass, which is way too cumbersome in my opinion.  There's a real redeye bass, which is one of the "black bass", but many people especially outside the Ozarks call rock bass redeye bass.  Ozarkers always called walleye "jack salmon" or just "jack", and seldom differentiated between walleye and sauger, they were all "jack".  Yellow suckers.  Hog mollies.  Stonerollers are often called "slicks".  Bowfin are grinnel.  In other parts of the country, crappie are sometimes called "calico bass".

Geez, it's a wonder any of us know what kind of fish any of us are really talking about.

[tjm]

Some one should make up a poster chart with pictures of all these and notes of the main differences other  than  just pointing out that the color can vary. i rarely count the spines in a dorsal or pectoral fin but it would be nice to know that this species has 11 and the other look alike species has 9 or 14. I have caught a lot of sunfish over the years that didn't look like any of the common pictures.  

[MoCarp]

Can’t remember the artist name but did art plates for in fisherman mag....great work has a nice book

[Johnsfolly]

 

10 hours ago, Al Agnew said:

Spotted bass are so often called Kentucky bass, or even Kentucky spotted bass, which is way too cumbersome in my opinion.  There's a real redeye bass, which is one of the "black bass", but many people especially outside the Ozarks call rock bass redeye bass.  Ozarkers always called walleye "jack salmon" or just "jack", and seldom differentiated between walleye and sauger, they were all "jack".  Yellow suckers.  Hog mollies.  Stonerollers are often called "slicks".  Bowfin are grinnel.  In other parts of the country, crappie are sometimes called "calico bass".

I knew Kentucky bass before I ever heard of spotted bass. Recently the redeye bass taxonomy was evaluated and there are now five species of redeye bass, Cahaba, Chattahoochee, Coosa, Tallapoosa, and Black Warrior redeye bass. They are mostly defined now by the river systems that the are found. I have heard of walleyes (and probably saugers as well) referred to as walleyed pike. Crappie in Florida were called specks.

Then there are the Cajun names; choupique, gaspergou, sac a lait... !

[Quillback]

New England has some unusual names for fish, might be more of a local thing in the Boston area, but sunfish were called "Kivvers"  (don't know if I spelled that correctly as never saw it printed).  Bullheads were "Horned Pout".  And as mentioned above, crappie were "Calicoes".  

My Tennessee uncle calls redears, shell crackers.  .