We were fishing Boulder Lake and getting hits all over the place. Gills, crappie, medium small bass every time we stopped the boat. Tom caught a fish that had features we've never seen. It had a mouth similar to a crappie and large, the coloring was an orange underbelly, with a predominately green/blue body. There were large elongated spots on the face. Is this the hybrid fish they talk about? Wish we'd have kept it just for a photo.

Dan

Was it a flat fish like a crappie or bluegill?

I'd guess a Pumpkinseed if it was.
See http://www.landbigfish.com/fish/fish.cfm?ID=30

Sounds to me like you might have caught what I call a rock bass....check it out on google I'm pretty sure u will agree....after looking myself on google what I call a rock bass is also actually called a warmouth

Gentlemen

This is taken from the IDNR web page about Pyramid State Park:

"Fisherman will find that largemouth bass and bluegill are the predominant species. Lost Lake (a hike-in lake) and some of the other lakes contain a hybrid of green sunfish/bluegill."

The body was more elongated, similar to a Crappie and the mouth was really large, but the coloring was really stunning. It definitely had the dark greens of the green sunfish and the bluegill coloring was there as well, but there was a definite orange contrast as well.

It was a lovely fish and not at all resembling the Pumpkinseeds that I caught by the hundreds as a kid in Wisconsin. This was a different animal entirely. I'll keep the next one, no matter what size it is.

Thanks again.

Dan

If we had a picture we could ID it. Sounds like either a green sunfish or a warmouth though.

It sounds like a warmouth blue gill.

Sounds to me like you might have caught what I call a rock bass....check it out on google I'm pretty sure u will agree....after looking myself on google what I call a rock bass is also actually called a warmouth

That's what I immediately thought too.

Dan, those lakes will surprise you, you never know what you will catch. I am 95% Largemouth fisherman, 5% Smallmouth fisherman, I am usually thowing a blue fleck Yamamoto Senko, this past season at Pyramid I kept accidentally catching these massive panfish, I did not know what they were and thought maybe I had a State Record, the one I took home ended up only being one pound and one eighth.... I had to look at the fish with it in my hand at the laptop on Wikipedia to identify it, ended up just being a green sunfish, but imagine that, sunfish consistantly hitting with speed and aggression a 5 inch long Senko, and they actually fought pretty good too. Still have that one frozen, trying to decide whether or not to mount it, it is pretty imressive to look at. This one lake produced four fish that size, and I saw more with my polarized glasses. I wonder if you had a "Warmouth" or even a "Goggle-Eye" like we catch over on the Meremac River when we fish over there.

if you don't mind hiking.. there are some fantastic little holes out at pyramid that routinely produce huge pan fish.. no way to get them other than on foot, but well worth the walking :)

do you remember the EYE color of the mystery fish?

Yeah I also heard the same thing about the green sunfish and bluegill crossing. They all are species of the sunfish family that dont normally inter-mate but there have been findings of the bluegill and green sunfish doing it.

Also about the rock bass. Growing up in southern illinois we have been taught that the green sunfish is a rock bass. Or we call them Rock bass, when they are actually green sunfish. LOL, i have no idea why but i did it most of my early life. Rock bass are typically not native to southern illinois, they look like a smaller smallmouth bass. Also rock bass and warmouth are not the same fish. Once again both members of the sunfish family, but two different fish. We do have warmouth around here, but its typically hard to distingush the warmouth from the green sunfish.

Warmouth have a small patch of teeth on their tongue... That is the major distinguishing characteristic, but other than that a warmouth looks just like a green sunfish. The closest spot around here that you will find a rock bass will be in a cold water stream of the ozarks.

(Just reading old posts using the search feature)

I agree on the rock bass- or what I as a former Missouri resident/ stream fisherman consider a rock bass.. I have never caught one this side of the Ole Miss'.. Neither have I caught a spotted or Kentucky bass.. And I do miss both- fighting little buggars..

I wonder why So I'll does not have any populations of either? Maybe one of the forums Ichthyologysts(spelling??) -- (fish dudes) can weigh in on that question..

There are both spotted bass and rock bass in IL. No spotted bass in lakes, but there are a few lakes with rock bass. Plenty of creeks with spotted bass in the southern part of the state.

Here is a picture of so IL spotted bass that I caught last year.

http://i480.photobucket.com/albums/rr161/andy_coursey/PICT0144.jpg

Here is what the original poster probably caught. It is a green sunfish.

http://i480.photobucket.com/albums/rr161/andy_coursey/Southern%20Illinois/SOILCreekin4-29-12043.jpg



And here is a southern Illinois rock bass (goggleye)


http://i480.photobucket.com/albums/rr161/andy_coursey/Southern%20Illinois/SOILCreekin4-29-12021.jpg


and another spotted bass with a little better coloration

http://i480.photobucket.com/albums/rr161/andy_coursey/Southern%20Illinois/SOILCreekin4-29-12015.jpg

Ah the Kentucky, the looker of the sunfish family- look at the size of the fan in that tail!