I'm posting this post for someone else from another forum. What are your thoughts on ID? Melanistic? Warmouth?
I caught this fish while fishing today. I'm not sure what kind it is. This pond has thousands of some type of very light colored sunfish and this fish right in the middle of them all. I thought he might be a green sunfish, but I don't think thats it. Maybe some freak genetic mutation? Whatever it is, it's one beautiful fish. Any ideas? BTW It's about 4-5 inches long. The pic with the ziplock is a gallon ziplock for size reference.
I'm almost 100% sure its some form of sunfish. It has the black dot on the side just like the rest of the fish in the pond and was swimming with them all. Here are two other fish I caught in the same group. This dark fish i'm sure is the same kind as these two. It's hard to tell in the pic but its the same type. Unfortunately Arizona does not allow keeping or transporting native fish, so he went back into the pond after a few pics. He wasn't in the shade, there isn't a whole lot of shade in this pond.