Stumpknocker.....

by RayLee, Tuesday, June 17, 2025, 18:15 (11 days ago)

or baby warmouth ? It is tiny though the photo doesn't give either scale or the actual profile shape. Imagine a dill hamburger slice from a jar and you get the idea of just how small.

[image]

I use tiny flies to catch fish this small and can catch them in the most unexpected places.....streetside stormwater ditches in town even.....you ought to see the looks of pity/disdain I get from both motorists & pedestrians. Then the expressions of surprise when a catch is witnessed. I either promptly release the fish unharmed with nothing more than a sore mouth or else I accumulate a few in a bucket to stock the aquarium for the grandkids to observe.

If any here are anglers and you find the whole sport of ardent serious fishing to be more stressful than it should be then I can wholeheartedly recommend what is referred to as micro fishing. Just last saturday morning after an eleven hour shift I needed to wind down and metabolize 15 cups of java before crashing/siesta. I used a 9' cane pole and 8' of 4 lb. mono and a #14 1/200th. oz. jighead at a very small urban creek near my home. On the jighead was just a piece of something fishy smelling from one of those berkley brand jars. I caught quite a few sunfishes.....I lost count at 19 and none were bigger than a potato chip.

Fellow church congregants who are serious bass anglers used to pick at me but several now carry ultralight gear in their $60,000 boats with weighted floats which facilities throwing the near weightless flies and tiny jigs without actual fly gear. After an arduous day on the water languishing in the summer sun without a single bass bite, they now unwind and cool off for a while and redeem the time with a few tiny bites.

Your thoughts ?

https://troutmagnet.com/trout-magnet/mini-magnet.html

https://www.berkley-fishing.com/products/powerbait-power-honey-worm?variant=42291155271...

My guess would be warmouth.

by Jimmy P., Florida Panhandle, Wednesday, June 18, 2025, 06:00 (10 days ago) @ RayLee

Definitely not what we call a stumpknocker in the Florida Panhandle, but as you know, local names vary.

This looks similar.....

by RayLee, Wednesday, June 18, 2025, 07:35 (10 days ago) @ Jimmy P.

https://www.koaw.org/bantam-sunfish

but the habitat range map is quite a bit to the west. Probably impossible to know for sure. This one is not much bigger than your thumbnail but it is by far the most active of this group in the aquarium.

They'll soon be going back to their home three minutes from here or else to the pond I stock. I may try to keep the two of this particular variety but they look so much different in the dipnet when transferring from aquarium to bucket. There is also a tiny green that is so small I would have never had been able to hook it but for the green's proportional larger mouths.

Voracious little predators

by AaronB, Wednesday, June 18, 2025, 08:21 (10 days ago) @ RayLee

All the members of the sunfish family native to North America are so predacious they'll eat anything that A. moves, and B. they can get their mouth around.

There's not a lot that is more fun than fishing a secluded farm pond with a fly rod and a handful of flies. Wet, dry, nymphs, terrestrials, whatever... if they can get their mouths around it they'll eat it.

-AaronB

Voracious little predators

by Paul ⌂, Wednesday, June 18, 2025, 09:36 (10 days ago) @ AaronB

Shucks, find the right pond and you can catch them on bare hooks! Years ago we got permission to fish a secluded pond in SW MO. It was full of stunted crappie and like piranha they had apparently eaten about everything else out of the pond. We caught quite a few on just bare hooks. All of a size and none over about four or five inches.

The bare hook catches are interesting.....

by RayLee, Thursday, June 19, 2025, 08:57 (9 days ago) @ Paul

I went to the nearest spring to catch some water for the twice a week aquarium refresh. I needed to dapple a fly or jig to wind down and I got nothing but nibbles and short strikes. I took the rubber bug off of the gold coloured mini trout magnet and promptly caught a small redbreast with just the bare jighead.

By far, the most I catch.....

by RayLee, Wednesday, June 18, 2025, 14:42 (10 days ago) @ AaronB

at the little creek nearby are the longears. Next is a tie between redbreasts and greens.

https://www.outdooralabama.com/game-fish/bream-sunfish-alabama

https://www.koaw.org/sunfishes

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