Identifying 2 fish caught in Oakland County

[Siir]

Hello all, this is my first post here. I was out fishing in my backyard pond today and caught a couple fish that I need help identifying.

I live in South East Michigan and I generally assume that all the fish that have ended up in my family's pond (the pond was dug 3 years ago) have come there naturally. Though I do know a neighbor upstream of me has said that he stocks goldfish in his pond, and I've seen at least one end up in mine.

Last year when I tried fishing, I caught nothing but pumpkinseeds. This year I've caught mostly bluegill, 3 bass, 1 pumpkinseed, and 1 fish that I can't quite peg as a pumpkinseed, redear, or some kind of hybrid. It lacks the bright turquoise markings on its head that I've seen in other pumpkinseeds I've caught.

I know the bass is not a smallmouth. And as far as I know, the largemouth is the only other species of black bass native to Michigan.

The bass that I've caught all lack the distinct laterally striping that I've read is characteristic of largemouth basses and the rear edge of their mouths are approximately lined up with the rear edges of their eyes (in largemouths I had read that the mouths were supposed to extend back past the eyes). I didn't know if these are just blander looking largemouths or if they are some non-native (to Michigan) species?

I have videos of both:

The bass

http://img809.imageshack.us/img809/9505/bass.mp4

and sunfish (compared to a Bluegill)

http://img10.imageshack.us/img10/7599/randb.mp4

And sorry about the second video. At one point the sunfish flops out of my hand back into the bucket I was keeping it in, so I threw my camera into my pocket while I retrieved it.

So again, I have 3 questions:

- Is that a largemouth bass?
-Is the sunfish (the smaller one in the video) a redear or pumpkinseed?
-What do you look for in telling apart a redear from a pumpkinseed?

Thank you.
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[davetclown]

Welcome to our humble site.

one, yes that is a large mouth bass.

two, that looks to be a cross between a red ear and a sunfish. a still picture would be better to identify

three, I would be ticked a bit to hear some one intentionaly putting gold fish and carp in the river, not only is it unlawfull they do destroy fish beds of other fish species.
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[davetclown]

I forgot to add, we have a species page where you can scope out what you have, but your always welcome to ask here just to be sure.

[url "http://www.bigfishtackle.com/fish_species/"]http://www.bigfishtackle.com/fish_species/[/url]
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