I went out this morning for about an hour (which was more than enough time seeing water temp was only 35 degrees). I went to my typical Fox River location to search and see what has moved in to the area and to make sure sticklebacks are still there (was hoping to set up a tank for young ones soon.) It started off slow and my toes were frozen in a couple of minutes. I started checking in the undercuts of the banks and found some of my typical finds here (tadpole madtoms, bullheads, green sunfish and rock bass). I continued down the way collect gammides (not sure if that is the corret name, but freshwater shrimp to seed my tanks). I then got the the mouth of a stream that flows in (where I have seen muskie, gar, northern, etc. and also find sticklebacks) but found nothing. I checked a little further down stream behind a log jam and hit the jackpot! I caught about 30 sticklebacks, 15 or so tadpole madtoms, 10 green sunnies, 10 rockbass 5 mudminnows, and a what I believe to be a rockbass/green sunfish cross. I have no pictures as we are house hunting and the battery was dead, but the fish was typical rockbass shape, red eye, it had the gill spot that the greens have, it had the molted brown patter with green and red spangles all over. It was very bizzare! It was also wounded, and I felt bad putting him back where he was probably injured, but I hope to find another similar this year with my camera!

Overall a good day! and I am happy to have seen my sticklebacks

Sounds like a fantastic trip. I doubt your mystery fish was a hybrid between a rock bass and a green but it could maybe be a warmouth?

I have only seen one warmouth in person and it looked nothing like this. I was completely amazed with the spangles of red and green in it which was why I was soo confused with it. It didn't match anything in any of my ID'ing books and I have paged through 3 books now. I am kicking myself for not having a camera! I am also kicking myself for being in a state where we cannot collect sunfish lol. Had it been legal, I would have jumped at the oportunity, but he is back into his little rootball I found him in.

Sounds like a warmouth to me as well, they can really vary a lot in coloration depending on the conditions and their mood. I guess you could describe them as sort of a chameleon like fish as far as coloration goes. Also did you look at the mouth size? I also agree that a rockbass x any lepomis is very unlikely since they are not even the same genus.

the mouth was very similar to the other rockbass found yesterday, but just a little smaller. I must say I am trying to look and find some warmouth images that show the spangling I saw in HOPES that it actually is a warmouth. I went back late last night and tried to find him again (seeing he was injured I had hoped he wouldn't have moved, but he wasn't there.