Fish on! Fisherman's chronicles... Sunnies vs. Perch vs. Bluegills

[Al_Capone_Junior]

Dun went fishin' [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img] down at the creek today.

Got me some BEER. COLD that is. And some ICE. To go FISHIN'. At the CREEK.

Twas a good fishin' day [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]. Bass and poich swimmin' about 2' under the surface, crusin' for minnows.

So I cast out my little minnow shaped Rappala "jointed shad-rap." It dives some, and usually catches fish in both rivers and lakes, as long as there's sufficiently deep water. Well the water at the creek is about 5'-15' deep, plenty deep enough.

So I'm a castin' and a reelin'. Soon enough...

Well hey hey hey I'll be screwed glued and tattooed
looks like I got me one of them fish on! fish on!

I reel the puppy in and whadda you know...

fish on! It's a perch. Wait no. It's a bluegill. No, it's a sunny. Wait, what the hell is it?

As it turns out, there is no absolute distinction between a sunny, perch, or bluegill. Bluegills appear to have bluish sides, especially around the gills, sometimes with a striped arrangement. Sunnies are a definite shade of orangish / sun color on the sides. Perch are neither bluegills nor sunnies. But exactly which of these your fish happens to be may be quite uncertain, especially since these fish are so similar they undoubtedly interbreed with each other.

Thus the term... "poich." It's the kind of fish that aint a perch, aint a sunny and aint a bluegill. It's a poich.

Anyway, the real debate is not what the genetic coding of each fish proves its lineage to be. The real debate is what kind of fish you caught after you've had a feer beers, and so have your fishin' buddies.

So onward I went. A buddy came down with some more beer and some minnows and we baited up a couple more poles. Bass love minnnows! [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

It was starting to get dark, but we had a light, so no problem there. Dusk is when the big ass bass come out to play! We caught a couple more fish, nothing spectactular, then I saw the pole with the top-bottom rig go wild. I reeled it in and sure enough, it was a double header! A small catfish and a smallmouth bass! Double whammy! [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img] Smallmouth bass are very cool fish, with really pretty colorings. Catfish are not nearly the noble creatures that bass are, but hey, they're fish! Little sucker bit me tho when I was unhooking him! [img]/images/graemlins/mad.gif[/img] D'oh! [img]/images/graemlins/ooo.gif[/img] Amazing how much it hurt to get bit on the thumb by a 5' fish! You gotta be REAL careful with the big ones!

A little while later... FISH ON!!!!! Holy friggin' cow Batman, it's a BIG one! [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img] Sure enough, it's a bass, a largemouth, one of the noblest creatures on the planet. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img] And it was a REALLY big one, one of the biggest I've ever seen in this creek. It was probably 4.5-5 pounds, FAT SUCKER too! A woman could probably stick her whole fist in the creature's mouth (that aint no fish tale either). What a fish! I carefully unhooked it and let it go. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img] Definitely want that one to breed.

A while later we packed it up and went home. Twas a good day fishin'. And that's WAY better than even the best day working! [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

al