44 replies to this topic

[centrarchid]

Show a picture of eyes relative to head. Crack that ice.

[Riffledace]

I still don't have a picture, but there is a warm spell here and I could probably catch one tomorrow. Still don't know how to post pics, though.

[Riffledace]

Actually, the only reason I didn't catch one was because I forgot. The pond has melted over the past few days.

[Riffledace]

Ok, here are the pictures I got. It's hard to find adult pumpkinseeds, though. I catch 1 pumpkinseed for every 4 or 5 banded sunfish.  image.jpg   87.27KB   3 downloads  image.jpg   98.96KB   6 downloads  image.jpg   80.47KB   7 downloads
And here's some of the bandeds I also caught:
 image.jpg   56.38KB   3 downloads  image.jpg   101KB   1 downloads
Unfortunately, the biggest pumpkinseed was out of focus but you can still sort of see how big it's eye is.

[centrarchid]

Eyes look a little large relative to those I raise in in ponds where food is not limited. The stunted look should be more pronounced in larger animals.

[mikez]

I have seen a few ponds in Ma that have the stunted pumpkinseeds. In some it seems the mini-seeds are even more colorful while in some barren gravel bed farm ponds they are almost plain silver when not breeding. I have kept breeding males captured from such populations and found them unbearably aggressive - maybe more so than 'seeds from normal populations.

On a related, reverse note, I know a local pond where bluegill predominate but the pumpkinseeds are huge. As anglers, my partner and I sometimes pursue jumbo panfish. Nothing beats a giant, fully colored up pumpkinseed if yer into such things of course.

[mikez]

I meant to say the stunted seeds are often way overpopulated despite pickerel ALWAYS being present. As a side note, if banded sunfish are present, redfin pickerel ARE also present.
Seems to me the picks don't control the sunfish as well as bass.

Oh yah, I meant my FISHING partner!

[butch]

I think there's some studies done with esox/sunfish prey/predator relationships and it seems that esocids wasn't effective at it, tho larger esox species do improve the size of sunfish a little but not so much. That said there's a small lake that holds stunted seed populations but also holds fair numbers of large bass as well.

[Riffledace]

I've never seen an E. Americanus in there, but it's full of chain pickerel. The banded sunfish actually do outnumber the pumpkinseeds when I scoop them up with a net, but that might just be because the pumpkins are faster and more wary. I can't show bigger fish than those because there are no bigger pumpkinseeds than that. The banded sunfish actually get bigger in there. Sometimes I catch big 3-4 inchersthat are almost completely round with little tiny fins.

Edited by Riffledace, 29 December 2014 - 11:26 AM.

[mikez]

I would guess your lack of redfins and the fact that banded are more common reflects your choice of netting spots.
You must be really scooping in the muck and shallow weedy spots to find the banded. 'seeds venture into more open areas.

The redfins will be way back in the tributary streams, sometimes tiny ones oozing from swamps. They'd be in the weeds and muck with the banded. The young ones can be hard to tell from juvie chains.

[Riffledace]

There aren't any permanent tributary streams. There isn't any way for fish to get in or out. My guess is that some fish entered the pond during a heavy rain and became trapped, and redfins weren't among them. The thing about this particular pond is that there are no real open areas, it's all muck. I usually only net in the most open areas, because they are the only areas that contain any fish. (Also, trying to access the other areas means sinking into the peat and being preserved for thousands of years until some archaeologists dig the place up and put my picture in national geographic.) I'm pretty sure the whole area is just a more suitable habitat for banded sunfish than anything else. Although it is strange that the shiners get so big in such a hostile environment.

Edited by Riffledace, 30 December 2014 - 12:07 PM.

[butch]

Are the shiners, golden shiners? I'm not surprised that they gets big with little or no competition from other fishes for the resources.

[Riffledace]

They're goldens.

[mikez]

Both redfins and banded sunnies are great colonizers using rain, floods, beaver ponds what ever to get into those tiny swampy water bodies that don't seem to have inlets. They are so often found together that I automatically assume one is present if the other is. I've yet to find a place they're not.

[Riffledace]

I guess I'll have to look more carefully. It's just that I've netted loads of baby pickeral from that place, and not one of them has had that distinctive stripe.

[mikez]

I guess my post makes it sound like it's easy to find redfin - it's not. They shy from open areas where the chains rule. Also my absolute claim that the two species are always together was prolly a bit brash. Lets say they're USUALLY together, but maybe not always.

PS If you're looking at pickerel less than say 4 inches long, it can be tricky to tell them apart. I don't even try. I only count adult redfin that are clearly not chains. Also, there is evidence that some hybridization occurs. I've never found one I could be certain was chain/refin cross but many have confused me and made me doubt what I had.
I did once catch on hook and line a very clear northern pike/chain cross in the Concord river but that's a topic for its own thread....

[Riffledace]

I was trying to post a picture from the web of a baby redfin pickeral, but i realized that using pictures is considered a form of internet " plagiarism" and it wouldn't let me anyway... Now I can't delete those posts... But anyway, do really little americanus fry not have bold black and white horizontal stripes?

[Riffledace]

That got fixed fast... Thanks.

[gerald]

In your post #24, i think photos #1 and #3 may be bluegills. #2 is a p-seed and #4 and 5 are obesus.

Food availability in floodplain pools may be abundant for brief periods, then scarce for long periods. Stunting could result from those "crunch periods" when fish are crowded into shrinking pools with little food. Herons, raccoons, weasels, etc probably pick off the bigger ones. Little sunfish that can bury into mud quickly are probably safer.

With really young Esox (amer vs niger) I haven't found any one character that I'd call reliable, but page 242 in Fritz's Freshwater Fishes of SC gives a good comparison of multiple characters. If you actually catch both species at similar sizes you can probably sort most of them into redfins vs chains, but both spp can show a lot of variation. If you're finding just one species, and only catching tiny juvies, it can be a tough call deciding which one you've got.

[Riffledace]

I've found both species in other areas, and the small 1- 2 inch juveniles look very different to me.