Natural Highlights: Bass, Bluegills, and the Sunfish Family
At Epping Way section of the Wolf River Greenway, where we hosted our first Family Fishing Frenzy on Sept. 21st, a 20-acre lake supports good numbers of largemouth bass and bluegills, two popular members of the large Sunfish Family. The first fish that children catch is often a bluegill. The term "bream" is commonly used for bluegills and the other sunfish which resemble them, and when we talk about “panfish” we are often referring to these fish with their round, pancake-like profile.
The Sunfish Family (Centrarchidae) includes 34 species which occur naturally only in North America. The species most familiar to anglers in the Mid-South are bluegills and other small sunfish (Genus Lepomis), largemouth, spotted, and smallmouth bass (Genus Micropterus), black and white crappie (Genus Pomoxis), the flier (Genus Centrarchus), and the rock bass (Genus Ambloplites).
What do they all have in common? Sunfish have two fused dorsal fins, one spiny and one with soft rays, and 3 to 9 spines on the anal fin. Their pectoral and pelvic fins are positioned in a way that facilitates quick turns, starts, and stops rather than streamlined distance swimming. They tend to prefer warmwater habitat with plentiful protective aquatic vegetation and other material. All are nest builders, making shallow depressions in the bottom substrate by fanning their fins; once the female deposits her eggs, the males will guard them until they hatch, then guard the new hatchlings for a few days.
Our commonly encountered largemouth bass and bluegill-like species can be distinguished from all other genera by the presence of only 3 spines on the anal fin. While the bass species are easy to identify – the largemouth bass (Micropterus salmoides) has a really big mouth, for example – the bluegill is similar to a confusing array of other fishes: the pumpkinseed, the warmouth, the green sunfish, the longear sunfish, the redear sunfish, the redbreast sunfish – and the spotted, the orange spotted, the dollar sunfish, and more! But in a nutshell, a bluegill (Lepomis macrochirus) has a small mouth, long pectoral fins, a dark flap on its gill covering (operculum), a dark spot on its rear dorsal fin, and vertical stripes on its sides. Adults can also be beautifully tinged with bright blue and orange. Happy Fishing!
For more information on sunfish, we suggest these links:
https://www.tn.gov/content/dam/tn/twra/documents/fishing/anglersguide.pdf
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUX-g5KREvE
Learn about sunfish at the Epping Way section of the Wolf River Greenway. Explore the diverse species and enjoy fishing for bluegills and bass.
