BTW, I believe most wild caught sunfish have some
level of worms. If you keep them in house it wont be
a problem infecting other fish. You could try giving
them flake food mixed with flagella to rid them of the
worms.
I have three pairs that I got from Mark B several
years ago, that originated in MN. They all have some
level of worms, but it hasn't spread and I expect to
try to breed them this year. The ones I caught in
East Fork Lake also had worms, and I unfortunately had
the male kill the female last spring. If you angle
for them, you need to know it is much easier to catch
the males than it is females. I caught approximately
14 males for every female that I caught.
Good luck ... they are a cool fish.
Klaus
Klaus
--- Bruce Stallsmith <fundulus_at_hotmail.com> wrote:
> Todd's experiences below with orange spotted sunfish
> are similar to mine.
> About the only time I come across them is when a
> local creek hits flood
> stage in February/March and backs up into shallow
> roadside ditches. Then I
> can collect them with a 12" x 18" net (I have 2
> small ones from this past
> winter...). Otherwise, they seem to hang in
> tough-to-collect places in the
> main creek channel. Interestingly, I gave 2 to a
> friend last summer for his
> outdoor pond. In less than a year they've gone from
> 'bout 3" long to about
> 6-7" and are terrorizing tadpoles and small frogs in
> his pond, to my
> friend's distress. So I've gotta go retrieve them
> sometime soon. A
> stoneroller has also become a monster in the same
> time period.
>
> --Bruce Stallsmith
> Huntsville, AL, US of A
>
> >Something that might be interesting... Around here,
> I've only run into
> >them in wide *slow* areas (like secondary channels
> around islands) on
> >larger streams/rivers, and then, *only* during high
> water. And then
> >I'll see 5 or 6 or more. I think their habitat
> during normal water
> >levels is just in areas that we can't/don't
> normally fish. It's too
> >wide, flat and quiet to seine or dip and too
> shallow to angle (dry flies
> >might be a good application?).
> >
> >I did run into a mess of them *once* in a smaller
> stream, but it was
> >deep and had *very* undercut banks. Sometimes my
> arms would be under
> >water and the seine poles still hadn't found the
> back :) Again, they
> >were in very slow pools. Netted and released one
> particular beauty...
> >7" male in full color. Unbelievable :)
> >
> >So maybe that's how you can look for them if you're
> in the range....
> >They're like the "reluctant to live in the river"
> kind of fish :)
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