Red Ear Sunfish

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OK - You now have a new assignment to be the taste tester for Redear Sunfish to see how they would fit in at Lake Powell. We already have tasty bluegill that also eat QM. It would be interesting to know how Redear compare on a chart of the best tasting sunfish for human consumption. You can form a committee of others to help with the taste analysis if you would like.
 
wayne gustaveson said:
OK - You now have a new assignment to be the taste tester for Redear Sunfish to see how they would fit in at Lake Powell. We already have tasty bluegill that also eat QM. It would be interesting to know how Redear compare on a chart of the best tasting sunfish for human consumption. You can form a committee of others to help with the taste analysis if you would like.
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Caught and ate lots of them when I lived in Florida while stationed there years ago. They are yummy and I cannot really tell you they are any different that a bluegill .Used to catch them together on rivers in the pan handle they call the bluegill there Brim and the red ears Shell crackers.. They would be a GREAT addition to Powell.
 
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upthecreek said:
Please put these in Powell. Can there be any downside at this point?
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No downside for mussel invasion but there may be if Redear displace some native fish or migrate up or downstream to new waters where they are not wanted. It is a difficult call since there have been no new fish species stocked into the Colorado since 1982. I am working on it, but need to be sure they will have no to minimum impact on the existing fish species now in Lake Powell and the Colorado River.

Those of you with experience in fishing for Redear please let me know if they tend to move into rivers above their home lake or if they are inclined to stay in the same bay for their entire life? Is there a spawning migration?

How much do they travel?
 
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wayne gustaveson said:
OK - You now have a new assignment to be the taste tester for Redear Sunfish to see how they would fit in at Lake Powell. We already have tasty bluegill that also eat QM. It would be interesting to know how Redear compare on a chart of the best tasting sunfish for human consumption. You can form a committee of others to help with the taste analysis if you would like.
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I am sure the Red Ears down here would have to taste better here than ones that eat them nasty mussels. None of them buggers down here. Sq
 
With the monitoring they do (or at least claim to do ) on threatened species in the lower river, a stray red ear would at least be noted. Maybe there is already an answer here.
 
wayne gustaveson said:
OK - You now have a new assignment to be the taste tester for Redear Sunfish to see how they would fit in at Lake Powell. We already have tasty bluegill that also eat QM. It would be interesting to know how Redear compare on a chart of the best tasting sunfish for human consumption. You can form a committee of others to help with the taste analysis if you would like.
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I caught a lot of redears back in Missouri and a fair number from Lake Pleasant back in the early and mid-90s. As for their flavor they are indistinguishable from bluegills in my humble opinion. Their meat is sweet and very firm. The one advantage they have over bluegills is they are plumper for their size and tend to have a bit more meat. They are terrific fighters. I can't imagine what a 5-pounder would be like on the end of a line, but my guess is it would outfight a largemouth of considerably bigger size. They are the hardest fighting panfish I've ever caught.

They are much harder to catch on artificial lures than bluegills. In fact, I can't recall ever catching one on an artificial. My friend John Conrad caught a pretty nice one on a crappie tube when fishing with me at Alamo Lake some 20-plus years ago, but I can't remember any other instances. Every one I caught from Lake Pleasant I caught on live worms, however I mostly used crickets back in Missouri which were cheap, available at every bait shop there and a lot less messy than worms.

As for their migration and travel habits I cannot say. I tended to catch them in the same places year after year in the Missouri lakes. In all fairness, however, these lakes were quite small - much smaller than even Alamo - so I cannot say what they would do in bigger water. I can say that I never caught one in running water nor have ever heard of one being caught in running water. I'm sure it's happened, but it would seem they prefer still lakes and ponds over streams and rivers. It should be noted, however, that they probably got into Lake Pleasant by traveling the CAP canal down from Havasu. I caught a bunch of them out of Lake Pleasant right after the canal was open, so it appears they traveled that distance pretty quickly. Whether they would run up either the Colorado or San Juan I cannot say.

As for habitat I've always found them in the same areas that hold bluegills. In the waters I've fished this means brushy cover. In deeper, clear water lakes bluegills will go deep in the warmer months - sometimes 30 to 40 feet or so. It's been my experience, however, that redears don't go quite as deep in warm weather as bluegills. If the bluegills were holding at 20-25 feet, the redears would normally be at 16-20.

That's about all I can say about them. Hope it helps!

Ed Gerdemann 🆒
 
Edward Gerdemann said:
I caught a lot of redears back in Missouri and a fair number from Lake Pleasant back in the early and mid-90s. As for their flavor they are indistinguishable from bluegills in my humble opinion. Their meat is sweet and very firm. The one advantage they have over bluegills is they are plumper for their size and tend to have a bit more meat. They are terrific fighters. I can't imagine what a 5-pounder would be like on the end of a line, but my guess is it would outfight a largemouth of considerably bigger size. They are the hardest fighting panfish I've ever caught.

They are much harder to catch on artificial lures than bluegills. In fact, I can't recall ever catching one on an artificial. My friend John Conrad caught a pretty nice one on a crappie tube when fishing with me at Alamo Lake some 20-plus years ago, but I can't remember any other instances. Every one I caught from Lake Pleasant I caught on live worms, however I mostly used crickets back in Missouri which were cheap, available at every bait shop there and a lot less messy than worms.

As for their migration and travel habits I cannot say. I tended to catch them in the same places year after year in the Missouri lakes. In all fairness, however, these lakes were quite small - much smaller than even Alamo - so I cannot say what they would do in bigger water. I can say that I never caught one in running water nor have ever heard of one being caught in running water. I'm sure it's happened, but it would seem they prefer still lakes and ponds over streams and rivers. It should be noted, however, that they probably got into Lake Pleasant by traveling the CAP canal down from Havasu. I caught a bunch of them out of Lake Pleasant right after the canal was open, so it appears they traveled that distance pretty quickly. Whether they would run up either the Colorado or San Juan I cannot say.

As for habitat I've always found them in the same areas that hold bluegills. In the waters I've fished this means brushy cover. In deeper, clear water lakes bluegills will go deep in the warmer months - sometimes 30 to 40 feet or so. It's been my experience, however, that redears don't go quite as deep in warm weather as bluegills. If the bluegills were holding at 20-25 feet, the redears would normally be at 16-20.

That's about all I can say about them. Hope it helps!

Ed Gerdemann 🆒
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The majority that I caught in Florida were in the Escambia river. While it was a slower moving river, within 15 - 20 miles of the estuary, it was still a moving body of water.
 
I've never heard anyone talk about catching ANY of them in the river below Havasu, or Lake Mohave even....
 
I fished Lake Havasu for 7 months caught largemouth and smallmouth and lots of striper. Only caught the red ears when they were spawning sight fishing on beds but I didn't eat them they as they were spawning. They get really big with thick shoulders and are great fighters.
 
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wayne gustaveson said:
News release from AZGFD on Redear Sunfish:

fishaz.azgfd.com

Mystery of world record solved? — Fish AZ

5 years after world-record redear sunfish catch, invasive quagga mussels considered a likely contributor to monster sizes of these sunfish...
fishaz.azgfd.com fishaz.azgfd.com
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I didn't read about the migration if any in their study, but the 25% reduction of quagga in an controlled study area sounds good. Maybe they would help control the mussels around the docks in the marinas. I wonder if they hold to that type of structure like bluegills do.
 
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