True sunfish ain't perch, bream ain't just bait, and why sunfish IDs matter
Meet the family Centrarchidae, and learn to ID its smallest members, Genus Lepomis
Fish ID drills take me back to Ichthyology 101 at Iowa State University, where some of our tests amounted to memorizing Latin and staring at “fish bait in jars.” Loads of minnow species, that is. The darters and chubs in the mix were a welcome relief.
One of our group decided it was easier to memorize the characteristics of the baby-food jar lids than the dozens of little silver sardines suspended in formaldehyde. Then, we learned that test day involved a fresh set of jars.
If you have trouble identifying sunfish or mustering any hint of give-a-dip to lump them into any category other than “bream” or “perch,” trust me, I get it. If they all look the same to you and telling one from the other feels like an attempt to learn Mandarin off a cereal box, I get that, too.
For anglers, though, a working knowledge of what a “sunfish” is is essential. After all, sunfishes take up the majority of North American sportfish interests, and we are stewards of that resource. If your creek used to be loaded with longears, redears, bluegills, and warmouth, and now all you’re catching are green sunfish, that’s something you need to be educated enough to notice.
If you’re spending money to stock your pond with hybrids, you’ll want to know if they’re thriving or if native greeners are taking over.
Wild, “true sunfishes” are unique to North America and a true American sports fishing treasure. Millions of anglers got their start with bream.
They stalk, play, and lurk incalculably in skinny water, muddy water, moss-choked ponds, urban creeks, and public ponds but also grace the currents of remote crystalline streams and thrive in idyllic coves of backcountry lakes and ponds. They are always ready to defend their space and attack aggressively—but not always mindlessly. Those who try to chase trophies of these specimens learn they are most elusive. If you want to examine the unique beauty of a mini-monster, a healthy dose of patience and skill and an outsized tussle-per-pound is the cost of that privilege.
Sunfish have me hooked; I cannot lie.
They don’t get the respect they deserve; that’s just a fact. Hand me an ultralight spinning rod or a 2-3 wt flyrod, send me to the water, and I’ll have a great day.
A sunfish acquaintance …
Growing up in Iowa, a “sunfish” was something we bought in a pet store and dumped in an aquarium, which, in taxonomic terms, was so far off the mark that it just isn’t worth the effort to explain the correction here. The fish we hooked in the farm ponds and muddy rivers were generally called “panfish,” a fair description. But also, every panfish we caught was a “bluegill,” whether it was one or not.
I paid absolutely no attention until ISU Ichthyology. There, I seared dozens of Latin words into my brain, but only with enough heat so those marks might persist in my B-minus to C-plus mentality through midterms and finals. Regrettably.
But 42 years later, I still recall the gist of things. After college, I moved north to Latitude 65, the land of salmonids beyond the Alaska Range mountains and far beyond the range of true sunfishes.
Only 15 years ago, I became an Okie and rediscovered my “bluegills.”
We’ve been making up time, the sunfishes and me.
… And re-acquaintance
That taxonomy stuff I learned in college comes in handy for understanding the phrase “true sunfish.” You know, that kingdom, phyla, class, order, family, genera, and species classification system.
Taxonomy places our pretty little sunfish in the same family as the big bucket-mouth largemouth bass of Florida and the lean, mean smallmouth bass of the Great Lakes Region. The same goes for crappies and temperate bass, like white bass and striped bass. All are in the same family: Centrarchidae.
For fun, I will acknowledge this family falls within the Order Perciformes, which accounts for about 10,000 “perch-like” species among 160 families. That does not mean sunfish are “perch,” so just forget it. Perches, like walleye and sauger, are distant cousins of the sunfish: different families, different genera.
Calling every sunfish a perch is like referring to every human as a monkey because both fall under the Order Primates. Granted, the moniker might occasionally fit (wink), but it’s comically inaccurate in everyday conversation.
Greek roots help people understand these Latin titles. In the case of Centrarchidae, it comes from the Greek kentron sharp point, plus, Archos rectum, or anus, plus -idea, which indicates a family group. Every fish in this group has spines in the anal fin, as anyone who has caught bass, crappie, or sunfish knows.
The following more specific step below the family is Genus, and the 13 recognized species of true sunfishes are Genus Lepomis, which in Greek refers to “plug or cover” (think, “gill cover or ear flap). Finally, Greek makes sense.
But which is which?
Facebook fishing group pages are replete with photos of people holding up sunfish, followed by strings of comments guessing at a valid ID—all of which include those clever descriptors of “bait” and “perch” and “bream” (or “brim").
Perch is never suitable, bait is accurate but not always proper, bream is acceptable but only one step above “fish,” and then come all the regional common names for a dozen different fishes.
Granted, it’s not always easy. In addition to the 13 species nationwide, 22 recognized hybrids muddy the waters. That’s what you get with communal nesting and sharing similar habitats with your kin. Greengills, a bluegill-green sunfish hybrid, are relatively common in the wild and available through hatcheries for stocking. In some regions of the country, pumpkinseed sunfish and bluegills hybridize; the same goes for bluegills and redears, and on it goes depending on the area and water body.
Hybridization can make pure identification challenging unless you keep a DNA kit in your tacklebox or know the stocking history of the water you’re fishing. Honestly, not all sunfish of any particular species are created equal. Some are dark, some light, some plain-looking, and some are gorgeous with ID easy as pie.
“Goggle-eye” is another confusing common name. It’s applied to warmouth sunfish but is also used for rock bass. Rock bass are not a species of Lepomis but live in the same rock stream habitat as warmouth sunfish, more commonly in Missouri and areas east. However, the two are often confused due to the common name, despite noticeable differences between the species.
Getting to know Lepomis
When I was new to Oklahoma, I found lists of our common sunfish species profiles on the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation website, old newspaper columns, and magazine clippings. Alabama’s Conservation and Natural Resources Outdoor Alabama web page has an even more comprehensive list and descriptions based on the book Fishes of Alabama and the Mobile Basin. They even include rock basses in their list.
Several years ago, my friends at Wired2Fish.com posted a story: 8 Commonly Misidentified Sunfish Species by Steven Bardin. That story introduced me to the fact that some sunfish species have flexible opercular flaps, and some do not. I can’t credit that knowledge to any specific deal-breaker IDs on my part, but Steven’s breakdown of IDs was excellent.
An evolutionary biologist named Koaw has a fun website and YouTube channel devoted to nature and fishing. His compilation of Sunfish ID videos is worth a look. I have not tried his gill-raker method for Sunfish ID yet, but I can appreciate how it might help in a pinch.
For several years, I’ve read many articles and played with sunfish IDs standing at the edge of a pond, creek, or home with a photo on my laptop. Still, the resources linked and listed above are quick, handy ones easily found online to get you going.
With Oklahoma anglers and simplification in mind, I created the following anatomy and fish ID comparison charts based on common ID tips—and my personal experiences and frustrations.
Please give them a whirl! Download, enlarge, see how they work, and let me know if the sunfish have you hooked too!
Great stuff Kelly... fun a redear and a group of bluegill sharing nests in the LIR yesterday. Hybridizing!