Huge Cichlid?

[Fenway]

For vacation I'm on Cape Coral in Florida. The house we're staying at is on a huge lake with many canals. My sister and I were fishing, just catching bluegill, and we saw a huge fish hit one of the bluegills. I had a big fish on,but it got off. My sister hooked a big fish and I had to reel it up. Got it up to the surface. One of my sisters grabbed the pool net and I got it out of water. It was a light blueish green. We didn't measure it, but it was 16-18 inches easy. Threw it back in and I hooked it again. but it snapped my line when it got close to the surface. Any ideas what it is? My mom took pictures on her camera so when we get home I'll post pictures. Probably on Monday.

[ScottFish]

Some sort of sunfish/brim? The picture will help big-time.

[Fenway]

It was definitely some kind of cichlid. I'll try to post a picture Monday.

[Fenway]

Caught another one. This one looked almost identical except it was noticeably smaller. We measured it at 13 inches from the mouth to the base of the tail. At least 3 inches smaller than the other. My mom's boyfriend took a few pictures of this one on his phone, so we are going to try to post them on here right now.

[Fenway]

I'm having trouble posting the picture from photobucket to here. How do I post it?

[ScottFish]

articles_how_postpics.php

[Fenway]

Thanks for your help. I caught another one this morning. This one had more of a purple blue color. The color in this picture isn't quite right. The first two had light blue green color all over their body.

[Fenway]

Here's the one I caught today.





Again, the color in the photo isn't quite right. The color in the dorsal fin in the first picture is pretty close. The fish was was solidly that color.

[Fenway]

Someone on cichlid.org said it was a tilapia.

[Hurriken]

Yeah, I think he is right. I just googled tilapia and he looks like a Nile Tilapia. They are found in Florida but are not native.

[J.B.]

Yup Tilapia...I'm told they're good w/ butter and garlic

[Fenway]

I googled some pictures myself and some of them looked near identical. I've had tilapia fillets and they were good.

[C. Andrew Nelson]

Most definitely a Tilapia.

[ScottFish]

Yumm. I just got a smoker --otherwise know as a unique "aquarium" for this fish!

[Crazygar]

Tilipia, cook it! If not, send the said fish to this address... ha ha. Yeah, Florida has some serious issues with loads of invasive species living in the Canals, ditches and other parts where they don't belong.

Dade County has the highest hits, you can find Gourami, Tetras and all sorts of Aquarium fare in those canals, but also Gators so be careful.

Gary