Big BG Hybrid Caught in San Diego

[JBplusThuy]

I saw this on the San Diego Union-Tribune fishing report:

"Murray: Kendra Ball, 4.25-pound bluegill-redear sunfish hybrid, crawdad, San Carlos Arm."

Lake Murray, in Suburban San Diego, would be considered a farm pond in some parts of the country, having just 171 surface acres when full. IIRC it has quagga mussels, and the redear are apparently taking advantage. Do BG hybrids have the pharyngeal teeth of redear?

Unfortunately, there was no photo in the fishing report.

[Jacob Hill]

thanks for sharing that's awesome

[JBplusThuy]

The first two bluegill I caught on a fly rod were actually descendants of Mayor Daley's bluegill, taken in Kawaguch-ko, near Mt. Fuji. Kawaguchi-ko also has a decent population of LMB, as do many other lakes in Japan. I've caught LMB (but not BG, I wonder if there are any?) in Sagami-ko as well. That's just a gorgeous lake, but shoreline access is poor.

[Jacob Hill]

funny story, chicago's mayor daley gave the emperor of japan a gift of some bluegill, which escaped causing the establishment of bluegill in japan

[Leo Nguyen]

I'm telling you, California is loaded with mutants! LOL However, Bruce is growing his monsters through genetic selection. We zapped them here with radioactive wastes, pollutions, and pharmaceutical wastes.

[Jim Gronaw]

Another far west California giant!

[JBplusThuy]

I forgot to finish my crawdad thought. I bet the intended target was LMB, just like with that guy who caught the huge redear out of Havasu.

[JBplusThuy]

The other thing that struck me about this fish was that it took a crawdad. Murray is mostly known as a bass lake - in 1972, it produced the then-California record at 17-14, until it was beaten in 1973 by a 20-15 monster  from Miramar, also in Suburban San Diego and about the same size as Murray.

At the time, everybody figured it would only be a short while before the world record fell in California, but it's still secure and Japan has emerged as a serious contender. If it doesn't come from here, I'm betting on Biwa-ko. It's got loads of bluegill for the bass to forage on, and since Japanese generally don't fish for BG, the LMB have no human competition for their food source.

[Bruce Condello]

Great find!  I'm searching the internet like crazy to find photos, but this report does not surprise me in the slightest.