Redfin and grass pickerels

Appearance

The two subspecies are very similar, but the grass pickerel lacks the redfin's distinctive orange to red fin coloration, as its fins having dark leading edges and amber to dusky coloration. In addition, the light areas between the dark bands are generally wider on the grass pickerel and narrower on the redfin pickerel. Record size grass and redfin pickerels can weigh around 2 pounds and reach lengths of around 13 inches. Redfin and grass pickerels are typically smaller than chain pickerels, which can be much larger.

Naming

Lesueur originally classified the grass pickerel as ''E. vermiculatus,'' but it is now considered a subspecies of ''E. americanus.''

There is no widely accepted English common collective name for the two ''E. americanus'' subspecies; "American pickerel" is a translation of the systematic name and the French ''brochet d'Amérique.''

Habitat

The redfin and grass pickerels occur primarily in sluggish, vegetated waters of pools, lakes and wetlands, and are carnivorous predators feeding on smaller fish. However, larger fishes, such as the striped bass, bowfin and gray weakfish, prey on the pickerels in turn when the latter venture into larger rivers or estuaries.

Both subspecies are native to the freshwater bodies of North America, and are not to be confused with their aggressive counterpart, the northern pike. The redfin pickerel's range extends from the Saint Lawrence basin in Quebec down to the Gulf Coast, from Mississippi to Florida; while the grass pickerel's range is further west, extending from the Great Lakes Basin, from Ontario to Michigan, down to the western Gulf Coast, from eastern Texas to Mississippi.

Reproduction

The pickerels reproduce by scattering spherical, sticky eggs in shallow, heavily vegetated waters. The eggs hatch in 11–15 days; the adult pickerels guard neither the eggs nor the young.