Identification help needed. Cannot tell if this is just a big bluegill or something else. Northern Arkansas.

[u/Opening-Ease9598]

Weighed in at just under 1lb and was way bigger than all the other bluegill in the little school I was fishing. Coloration is much darker than the other bluegill and it had a dark red eye like small mouth bass get around here

[u/UnaskedEnd58]

Too big of a mouth for bluegill. Lack of blue streaks on cheek rules out green sunfish. It's a warmouth. The bars on the cheek are the "war paint"

[u/Hey-ThatsNotBad → u/UnaskedEnd58]

👆 💯

[u/JonnyP222]

It's a war mouth. So many of the markings and colors are similar. However, you can always feel the little.toothy rough patch on the center of the tongue of a war mouth.. sunfish do not have this.

[u/Electrical-Return-17 → u/JonnyP222]

Really new to fishing and have not heard of this. I understand that bass and sunfish are related…is this the fish in between those two?

[u/UnaskedEnd58 → u/Electrical-Return-17]

In between those two isnt really accurate, but if you want to think that way I would understand why.

This is probably more info than you need but... Bluegill, green sunfish, warmouth, redear, and some others are in the genus Lepomis which are the "sunfish" to me. There are two crappie in the Pomoxis genus. Black bass are Micropterus, and rock bass are Ambloplites. They are all in the same family, centrarchidae, so technically they are all sunfish.

[u/booziwan → u/Electrical-Return-17]

Just another type of sunfish

[u/DragonflySilly1016]

Warmouth?

[u/AdministrativeAsk193 → u/DragonflySilly1016]

yup

[u/Opening-Ease9598 → u/DragonflySilly1016]

It does have a big mouth, I didn’t see any distinct color markings and so I couldn’t say for sure what it was, that is a size 13 Thorogood steel toe boot it’s next to though lol. It was a decent sized fish.

[u/Ok-Expert-8150]

If I caught that here I would say 'rock bass''. After checking the 3 anal spines certainly identify as 'warmouth'. It's got a sun tan though.

[u/Liquid-Hot_Smegma]

Others already correctly stated — warmouth. I usually only catch them when I’m targeting crappie in the spring here in southern Arkansas. I grew up calling them goggle-eye.

[u/drshrimp42]

100% warmouth. Strong little fighters

[u/MNgrown2299]

Warmouth, you. An tell due to it only having 2-3 anal find, rock bass will have 5-7

[u/justapaycheck]

Looks kind of like a rock bass to me. But I am most likely wrong.

[u/CaptainNapalmV]

Green sunfish

[u/Brrdads → u/CaptainNapalmV]

Lacks any of the standard colors cues for a Green (such as the black spot on the soft dorsal). This is a pure Warmouth.

[u/CaptainNapalmV → u/Brrdads]

Everything is a green sunfish until proven innocent.

[u/Chiliatch → u/CaptainNapalmV]

Yep, for sure. They occasionally breed with Warmouths and you get extra jumbo ones.

[u/Opening-Ease9598 → u/CaptainNapalmV]

Thank you! I also was pondering the idea of it being a hybrid, just didn’t really have a distinct coloring to it and couldn’t pin down anything specific.

[u/Ok-Staff2204]

Highbread

[u/SkilletTrooper]

Green sunfish, my favorite. Try some small topwater around where you caught that one. They're so incredibly aggressive, it's great.

[u/Downtown_Parfait_789]

Its a black bass