Smallie

[youngie22]

So... I trapped what looks like a baby smalll mouth in my minnow traps behind my house. I never knew they existed their. It is a small trout stream above the falls where it then turns intobigger water connected to mississippi. My question is do they have blue is coloring like a sunny or bluegill? I have caught plenty of potatoe chip sunnies before, and this is not one of them. It has red halo in eyes, marbley shadow in pattern, mostly light green and brown w/ blue in it almost like a bluegill, but not the bold blue under chin. What do you guys think? Gotta be a smallie right??? Would this be a good thing for a trout stream? I'm not sure, but I know I love smallies as well as brownies!

[JP Z]

youngie,

Can you shoot a picture? Sounds like an immature Smallie to me. I remember seeing fingerling that some blue to them when I would walk the river and go up in the shallows late summer when it would get really low.

[Cabela10]

Considering Bass are part of the sunfish family, I believe the fish you are describing is one of many sunfish and not a smallmouth bass. Simley Pond in Inver Grove Heights has many of those fish that you are talking about.

[Glenn_S]

Sounds like a young Rock Bass.

[EBass]

A smallie even when young will have that black strip at the end of their tails. Largemouth that the black lateral line that's easy to see and smallies have that black strip on the end of the tail. I've seen both YOY smallies and largies swimming in da sippi. That's how I could tell me apart without picking them up. My .02

[MattWtech]

get a fish tank and take care of it for a while, thatll clear this right up haha

[redrocketangler]

Id also say young sunnny i caught quite a few today you could mistake for young smallmouth

[Cabela10]

Yup, they almost look identical except for that blue under there lower jaw/eye.

[magic_minnow]

I second IMBASS, its a Rock Bass, they have that red eye like and it lookes like a dirty sunny ehhe

[Redline]

Sounds like a Rock Bass.

[Cabela10]

Rock Bass doesn't have that blue color he is talking about and Rock Bass don't resemble smallmouth.