bass? id

Can any one id this fish for me? I’m not even sure if it’s a bass some people call them stump knocker bass or red eyes or goggle eye bream. I catch them all the time in the pond. The young ones have a bit of a purplish color to their belly & the eyes are red although it didn't show up in the pic.

I caught this guy/girl in a net he/she was 12 in long and as you can see something tried to eat him/her. I kept it until all the fins grew back then let it go.

sry not a good pic

It looks like a warmouth. (Please don't everyone come out bashing this thread it only needs to be said once) In the future, you shouldn't release fish back into the wild. It is almost certainly illegal in your state primarily because you could introduce harmful pathogens into the water or a fish into a drainage it was not native.

Nice find! Looks like a beautiful male warmouth! I would have kept him. Warmouth, IMO, are one of the coolest sunfish. Did you measure it, or is 12" a guess?

12 inches would be a very big warmouth, although they do ocassionally get that big, and that is definitely what your fish is.

Ummm. He calls it a pond. Then I would assume that it is.
What ashtonmj is referring to is release into the wild. If it is a self contained farm pond, then re release should not be a problem, heck the DNR usually advocates the stocking of private ponds.

Please do not ever release a fish into any wild body of water! It is most likely illegal. Nanfa members do not like it, and any such illegal activity will be dealt with by forum officials.

I am assuming you released your fish into a captive body of water. My statement above is a blanket statement, I am not directing it towards redrain, simply using this post to reiterate a very important point.

Yes it is a private self contained pond with no near access to any other body's of water.( I would never put anything into a wild body of water or some place that it did not come from) The land/pond is privately owned and was stocked with many species of fish & plant well over 40 years ago. No one knows for sure what all lives in that pond now as the land/pond has changed hands several times and been stocked by numerous individuals.

The pond was originally a gravel mining pit behind my home but the company went belly up and left the pit along with their equipment, including a steam crane among other things. At one time, many years ago,(sadly) it had sewage draining into the pond but thankfuly no more.

I did measure the fish it was 12 inches. He was a monster.

o yea lol i'm a she. I guess I need to update my profile ^_^