Post of the week.

Mo, thanks for pointing that out! I am thinking about starting to go after Flatheads but I was worried about bait because bluegill is about the easiest fish ever to catch.

Thanks for the offers, I'll keep that in mind. I'll be back in Texas this September on leave and my unit should be home sometime in 2010.

As far as fishing in Texas I have yet to hit up the bigger local lakes like Belton and Stillhouse Hollow. I have been mostly fishing the local ponds on Fort Hood and having a blast.

Fishhauler, an old friend of mine had some land up near Mexia and I went hog hunting out there last fall. I also got to pull out some nice eater cats out of his "tanks". Beautiful country.

As for Flatheads in Mississippi we called them Shoveheads or Shovelnose Cats. The little mudcats we called yellow cats. It can be confusing!

People still look at my funny when i say "white perch". Growing up in louisiana, i never knew what a crappie was...

White Perch:

http://www.unb.ca/cri/projects/Fish_key/Percichthyidae/White_Perch.htm

Related to White Bass, hehe.

Is that what ya'll mean by White Perch? If so how do you manage to take a fish that's native range is the North East USA and keep it alive in time to set it up on your trotline?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_perch



This fish, as far as I have read, is not found in any Texas waters.

I keep seeing "perch" as the best go-to catfish bait but I have no idea what ya'll could be talking about. Unless everyone is illegally using crappie for bait that is...

Hellbilly, first off, Thank You for your service to our Country!!
As you've noticed, us Texans can be very confusing to out-of-staters on the names we use to collectively describe any member of our family of Sunfishes shown here Texas Perch

To answer your specific question of White Perch: We do not have the species you refer to above in your Wiki Link. Those along with Yellow Perch are from much more northern states as you already noted, and would properly be considered a "yankee" fish! LOL I doubt any self respecting Texas Yella Cat would even eat one of those if it were offered to him with a cold Shiner longneck.

When you hear someone refer to 'white perch' in Texas, they are talking about Crappie. And not necessarily White Crappie - could be Black Crappie but it is certainly not a true perch, nor is it any member of the smaller bluegill size sunfish group we collectively refer to in Texas as "perch". White Perch is an East Texas name that migrated from Louisiana where it is also used by the local population there if they don't have too much Cajun aka Coon-A$$ in their genetics in which case they would be calling them "Sac-a-lait" (approximately translates as 'bag of milk') At any rate, that particular 'White' Perch is not what is being talked about when Texans use the term 'perch' (unless it has the prefix 'White' as explained above)

In Texas, we generally use the terms Perch, Bream, and sometimes Bluegill interchangeably as a broad cover-all name for any of the fish named in my TPWD fish ID link above from the Sunfishes group. Same group that the folks in those northern states that do have true white and yellow perch would likely refer to as "Sunnies". FYI, that name Sunnies, if used in Texas, has been transplanted by persons of the Northern Persuasion and dam sure won't be spoken by any true Texan. We by gawd know our Perch and they ain't no Sunnies!!

In Texas, traditionally 'Perch' was used more so by people from Central and West Texas whereas Bream is more of an East Texas, Southeast, and and to a lesser extent, North Central Texas name. Bluegill is starting to be used more often - sometimes to correctly name the actual species, but often as a broad brush catch all name equivalent to bream or perch for the whole Sunfish group whether they be an actual Bluegill, Redear, Longear, Green Sunfish or whatever.

The only actual true members of the Sunfish family we would not call perch or bream, as mentioned somewhere earlier in this thread, are the Black Basses (Large and Smallmouth, Guadalupe (our Texas state fish) and Spotted. We just call these Bass, but we don't ever call them sunfish, perch, or bream even though they are technically in the sunfish family. Clear as mud so far?

So if that's not confusing enough, to be sure, a 3" or 4" perch is most excellent Flathead bait and perfectly 100% legal to use on a trotline provided it's not a 'White' Perch (crappie if you're from East Texas). Bream and Bluegills work pretty good too!

Now if you really want some good Flathead bait, go find you a tank up in far North East Texas where you can get permission to run a seine and getcha a bucket full of Slick Jims. If you can't find those, try to catch you some Branch Goggleye. Guaranteed to be the best flathead bait you can use - next to mudcats of course. LOL Welcome to Texas!!

Sweet, thanks for the info!

My wife and I were fishing for channel cats and were pestered by yellow mud cats between 7-10 inches long. Seems a bit big to be used as bait to me but I have never fished for flatheads before.

Had I known I would have tried to keep em alive and rig up a live bait limb line!

Thanks again.

Hellbilly,

Thanks for your service!

To keep it real simple we have;
* Bluegill & similar sunfish
* Crappie
* largemouth

Bream are found overseas. Perch are found up north and over seas. Back in the day European settlers called our native fish by names that they were familar with and it just stuck.

To call a bluegill a bream and a crappie a perch is slang term.

Here is a bream; http://www.prologicfishing.com/galleryBig.asp?id=1221&site=Picturegallery

Here is a perch; http://www.savage-gear.com/galleryBig.asp?id=1371&site=Picturegallery

Just to clarify, Crappie are game fish. Bluegill, sunfish, and other "perch/bream" are not. I know this has been mentioned elsewhere, but they are not on the "game fish" list.

Here is the list from TPWD:

Game Fish (includes hybrids or subspecies of fish on this list):

* Bass: Guadalupe, largemouth, smallmouth, spotted, striped, white, yellow
* Catfish: blue, channel, flathead
* Cobia
* Crappie: black, white
* Mackerel: king, Spanish
* Marlin: blue, white
* Pickerel
* Red drum
* Sailfish
* Sauger
* Seatrout, spotted
* Sharks
* Snook
* Spearfish, longbill
* Swordfish, broadbill
* Tarpon
* Tripletail
* Trout: brown, rainbow
* Wahoo
* Walleye

Nevermind that they have the big sunfish (the so called black basses) under bass, we know they mean well.

An often overlooked note here is the Yellow Bass (Morone mississippiensis) is indeed a gamefish. There just happen to be no size or bag limits on them.

we call them "Yella Bellies"
round here

Fish were called by local names long before the biologists started coming up with "official" names. Who's to say which is right? I call 'em by whatever name the person I'm talking to is using for them.

I like the way you think. I've found myself doing that lately as well. Seems like an easy way to keep things simple and get along with no fuss.

I'm just not sure I'll ever be able to train myself to call a dang Bluegill a Sunny though LMAO.

I have a hard time time calling a Google-Eye a Warmouth

I had a hard time too.
In Louisiana a:
Crappie is a white perch from Alexandria to Shreveport
Crappie is a Sacaliat anywhere south of Alexandria
Grennel is a Grennel in north louisiana
Grennel is Shoopig in south louisiana
Chain Pickerel is Jackfish anywhere in louisiana
But a Bream is a Bream or Bluegill or perch anywhere
Call em what you want they all look and taste the same