We stocked sunfish fry in a smaller pond at our office and they are finally of good enough size for the kids to catch a few. The sunfish are now in their second summer and are growing nicely. The bass are hitting them hard though and they are thinning out considerably so we will probably have to stock it again soon if the sunfish dont start spawning soon.


My little girl Leah's first fish! The picture was taken right as her smile was transitioning to a scream, hehe. She wasnt really sure about about fishing after that.


Caden with a smaller sunfish



My daugher Leah lifting a sunfish out of the water



Pretty sunfish.

VEry nice pics Aaron. I replied yesterday but it doens't look like it was recorded..

Cute kids..{ -;

Thanks Chuck.

By the way, have you ever seen a solid black sunfish? We have one in our pond, its the neatest thing. I have a picture I will post of it later.

NO sir..but some of our { Bluegill Sunfish} are pretty blackish looking when you catch them in brackish water...a purplelish black..

I once raised 2 big bluegills in a 30 gallon tank..they learned to eat cheese out of my hand....anyways..the bluegill's color blended in with the tan gravel I had in the bottom of the tank..although they were 7 inches ;long they were very hard to see when they were sitting on the bottom...at times I also raised and studied bass , bullheads and channel cats as well. The bass and catfish were VERY active in the dark..

I'd love to see the black bluegill.

This is the black Sunfish. If I remember correctly, when he was smaller, he was normal colored with a black patch that encompassed his entire dorsal fins and came partly down his sides. As he has grown, he has turned completely black. However, I didn't see him at all since last winter up until a few weeks ago so it could be a different fish, but I doubt it. The black spot was growing progressively larger has teh fish grew, so I assume it is the same. Also, we built this pond and stocked it ourselves, so I dont know of any foreign fish that it could be, but again I could be mistaken. We feed our perch 50 crickets almost every friday and therefore they are very accustomed to us and will swim up to us to feed, so I will try to catch him and take a picture of him out of the water soon

From information that I have read by a leading authority, the perch is most likely blind. This happens every know and then with sunfish. Because a fishes color is largely based on its surroundings, which is interpreted through vision, the fish is most likely blind which results in the fishes coloration being black. When I throw crickets, he usually sits there and doesnt do anything but slowly go towards the general direction of activity and wonders around slowly. Also, he is sitting on top of the grass 90 percent of the time and is very slow to move/react. Blindness helps to explain this, but I'm curious how he has survived so long unless his blindness was progressive which would explain the gradual change in coloration.

Thanks for sharing Aaron,,he diffently stands out..and is coloration does not blend in with his surroundings...It's a wonder he's still alive.I'm sure he's swam away from many bass.