This is a story about sunfish, but not your typical fun at the dockside, Huck Finn fishing trip. This is about...
GIANT HYBRID SUNFISH...
It is probably no surprise to faithful readers of my articles and columns that I am a man who never really grew up. I caught a bluegill when I was five, and I haven't been the same since. For a large portion of my fishing life, I have searched long and hard for the giants of the sunfish world...fish that exceed the twelve inch mark. They are as rare as it gets for freshwater fish, and most people have not seen 12 inch sunfish, aside from the red eared sunfish that routinely reach two pounds or more in prime shellcracker waters. But the most sensational, powerful and just plain monsterous panfish I have seen in the Mason Dixon region is the fish pictured above...the hybrid bluegill.
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| Male hybrid took a tipped grass shrimp jig. |
Hybrid sunfish are a cross from a male bluegill and a female green sunfish, producing a super fast growing fish that can adapt to pellet feeding or just get crazy big through natural forage when in abundance, They do not all look exactly alike. Some resemble more bluegill and others lean to the parent green sunfish in appearance. There are males and females, but most are dudes, and reproduction from the First generation, or F1 hybrids, are almost all males. They are aggressive and extremely strong, enduring fighters. Compared to the fighting abilities of other sunfish species, nothing else comes even remotely close to them.
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| My wife Linda with a stunning male hybrid that displays a strong bluegill dominance. |
I like them because they are big, pull a ton of drag and look like something out of the Amazon. The fin edging, a green sunfish trait, is often amplified in the F1 hybs. Barring is not always displayed, and the tips of the spiney dorsal have orange or yellow highlights. They are gorgeous! Here are a few pictures of some world-class hybrids that I was blessed to catch recently...
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| An astonishing hybrid at 12.75 inches long and over 2 pounds! Wow! |
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| This bluegill dominant/male hybrid sunfish taped out at 11.5 inches. |
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| Another giant at 12.25 inches and over 2 pounds! This is a bluegill dominant/female hybrid. |
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| Check out those stunning fin edgings and the yellow-white pectoral fins. |
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| Yet another amazing green sunfish X bluegill hybrid at 11.75 inches! |
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| Battlegrounds for the hybs was in the brushy banks. |
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| Many things work...small jigs, worms and tiny crank baits. |
If you are ever fortunate enough to locate a good hybrid pond, you may want to keep it to yourself. All of these trophy fish were released, but most anglers would keep such fish, and many would have kept them all! Some things you throw back, and some things you keep. When I was searching for a meaning in life, and in quest of who God was and wasn't, I realized that there were all kinds of philosophies out there. Why did I come to believe that Jesus Christ was the King of King and Lord of Lords? Because it just made way too much sense to me. You see...I'm a sinner, I deserve hell, and on my own, feeble efforts I could never 'save' myself from a dismal fate of hell. And neither can you...no matter how 'good' you are or what your good appears to do. My thoughts are vile and lustful, my actions are often self-centered and my heart is not always God centered. I need a savior, and only Jesus Christ can save me from my sin. This is too good to be true, but it enables every person on the planet to come to the King, regardless of their past, future or current state.
Proverbs 9:10 says this..'The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom
and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding'
When I allowed my heart and mind to accept that simple truth in scripture, my life, and my death, changed for ever! Praise God for hunting down a broken-down, shell of a man like me, and rescuing him!
THE QUEST IS OVER...THE CATCH WAS MADE!
