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Common Sunfish; Pumpkin-seed
"Slowly upward, wavering, gleaming
Rose the Ugudwash, the Sunfish;
Seized the line of Hiawatha,
Swung with all his weight upon it.
But when Hiawatha saw him
Slowly rising through the water,
Lifting up his disc refulgent,
Loud he shouted in derision
'Esa ! esa ! shame upon you,
You are Ugudwash, the Sunfish;
You are not the fish I wanted;
You are not the King of Fishes.'"
--Longfellow.
And Hiawatha was quite right. The sunfish is by no means the King of Fishes. But there is no fish which has been oftener sought by the young angler or which has brought more joy to the American boys of every generation. The pumpkin-seed is preeminently the small boy's fish, though it is by no means despised by children of larger growth. Never reaching a size that quite satisfies any one except the boy, yet biting with a vim which makes one regret that it is not larger; for a 2 or 3 pound "Sunny," would surely be a fish to try the skill and delight the heart of any angler.
The pumpkin-seed is a familiar inhabitant of clear brooks and ponds from Maine to the Great Lakes and southward east of the Alleghanies to Florida. In the Mississippi Valley it is found only in the northern portion, being fairly abundant in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, lowa and northward. It is said to be rather rare south of Virginia. It reaches a length of 8 inches and a weight of 6 or 8 ounces, and is "a very beautiful and compact little fish, perfect in all its parts, looking like a brilliant coin fresh from the mint."
Colour, greenish-olive above, shaded with bluish, the sides spotted and blotched with orange; belly orange-yellow; cheek orange, with wavy blue streaks; lower fins orange, the bluish and orange spotted; opercular flap rather small, the lower posterior part always bright scarlet, a mark which at once distinguishes this species, when adult, from all our other brightly coloured sunfishes.
Eupomotis gibbosus is subject to considerable variations as is to be expected in a species of such wide distribution. Blue stripes and blue markings on the side are very prominent in examples from Hicksville, Ohio, and Marion, lowa. Examples from Winona Lake, Indiana, have 7 or 8 faint dark bars on side and no blue stripes on cheek.