Freshwater Fishing

Sunperch

Fishermen call two species of bream “sunperch:” the longear sunfish and the dollar sunfish. Both are brilliantly jewel-like in coloration, plastered in red-oranges and yellows and covered with turquoise reticulations.[…]

Freshwater Fishing

What a mouth!

The goggle-eye is, with the possible exception of a spawning bull bluegill, the prettiest of the bream clan. Males are especially beautiful, with a body mottled with bright orange and olive and a bright red spot behind each gill cover and at the rear base of the dorsal fin.[…]

Freshwater Fishing

Bluegills

This feisty species is definitely the backbone of the bream fishery. It gets big — for a bream —at 10 inches, and during its summer-long spawning season forms dense beds of nests.[…]

Freshwater Fishing

Goggle-eyes

This large species of bream is properly called a “warmouth.” Its large mouth —larger than any other species of bream — and its more-elongated body shape have led some people (who should know better) to believe that they are hybrids between bluegills and bass.[…]

Freshwater Fishing

Bream hybrids

Sunfish hybridize more than any other family of freshwater or saltwater fish. Often a successful day will yield 200 bream, and it’s a rare day when at least one hybrid between species isn’t in the bunch.[…]