Panfish invading a trout stream!

[PatrickC]

I have a buddy that grew-up on that stream in the 40s & 50s. There were native brookies above the falls at that time. I have not seen anything but creek chubs above the falls. So I'm not sure the state of things up there now. It gets pretty dry above the falls in the Summer before a couple of the cold spring feeders dump in.

I have little doubt that some of the fish below the falls have made it up from the creek it dumps into, but this population most certainly sustains itself well with little influence from those stockers. I dug up some info on the creek a few years ago that did indicate the original stocking of the browns. I have since lost the document and can't remember the date, but it was certainly before any of our time.

 

[dryflyguy]

That's interesting Patrick.
I've always wondered if that stream originally held brookies.
I've never caught any there - but I've never fished it above the water fall.

 

[FarmerDave]

It is fairly safe to say that all streams in PA that now have wild brown trout at one time had native brook trout. So yea, at one time it had native brook trout.

 

[melvinp]

If you notice the blue gills you caught they have a lot more purple in them and if you look good you will see that they have some pretty impresive teeth.Catch a lot of them out of the Tunkhannock creek and have for years.My friends and I call them war mouths.

 

[FarmerDave]

Warmouth is a completely different fish and is even different shaped to some extent. It is way more common in Ohio. My understanding was that they are kind of rare in PA, and limited to Western PA, but that of course could be wrong. But even though they have bigger mouths and a little bit toothy, I don't think they are any tougher than bluegills. They actually seem to be on the soft side compared to bluegills. I have some in one of my ponds. I'm betting Patrick knows what they look like.

 

[PatrickC]

Have not seen any warmouth (and they are pretty distinct in their features) in this creek. I have seen hybrid sunfish, which is what was pictured above with all of the purple in it. Those are for sure from a stocked pond and not from the creek below.

 

[Swattie87]

Not to get all Sunfish snobby, but I'm pretty certain sg's "purple" Sunfish in the OP of this thread is 100% Bluegill. Some of them just have a more blue or purple tone to them. Not sure what you'd mix with a Bluegill to get it to look like that one. Greens and Pumpkinseeds mixed with BG produce a much more spotted/checkered pattern on the resulting hybrid offspring. Pretty sure there aren't Redbreasts in that watershed either (and Redbreasts don't usually do very well in small impoundments).

 

[melvinp]

I would think that they were more purple and silver just for being in the creek and I didn't know that there was an actual fish called a war mouth we just ran with it because of the teeth.There not musky teeth but noticeable for a blue gill.I kind of thought that they were getting bigger teeth just from what they we eating over the years.I will check out the war mouth tomarrow.Just looked up a warmouth pretty cool a cross between a bass and bluegill,Just think of the possibilities rainbow and great white.

 

[streamerguy]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure the first pic I posted is 100% bluegill. Though there were some other fish I caught which definitely could have been hybrids(either green sunfish x 'gill or grn sunfish x pumpkinseed).

I've caught a good handful of warmouths in NW PA, but FarmerDave is right, they're much more common in Ohio.

 

[FarmerDave]

PatrickC wrote:
Have not seen any warmouth (and they are pretty distinct in their features) in this creek. I have seen hybrid sunfish, which is what was pictured above with all of the purple in it. Those are for sure from a stocked pond and not from the creek below.

Pat, If you mean your earlier picture from page 1, that is not a hybrid. It is simply a bluegill from cold water. I'm thinking female.

I have had (purchased) hybrids. Most common by far is bluegill/green sunfish hybrid. and about 90% of those are makes and look quite different from that.

 

[jeremymcon]

That looks like a ton of fun! Also judging by the size of the trout in that one picture, it looks like that's a really nice trout stream too. I'm jealous.