A pumpkinseed sunfish is roughly the size of your hand, brightly coloured, and rarely taken seriously. This summer the species has delivered three record claims across two states, one of them spotted on forward-facing sonar by an angler chasing walleye.
West Virginia's record book had no pumpkinseed entry at all until this year. The category was created in 2024 along with redbreast sunfish, redear sunfish, black crappie and redhorse sucker, and stayed vacant. It has now changed hands twice inside a month.
Ken Neer of Morgantown opened the account on 25 June, taking a 9.09-inch fish weighing 0.60 pounds on red worms and 4-pound test from Fairfax Pond at Rehe Wildlife Management Area, Preston County. District 1 fisheries biologist Dustin Smith signed off on it.
The mark stood 19 days. Sierra Adamson of Beverly beat it on 14 July with a 9.13-inch, 0.62-pound fish from the Tygart Valley River in Randolph County, caught on a nightcrawler and 10-pound line and certified by WVDNR biologist Stephen Floyd at the Elkins Operation Center.
"The pumpkinseed state record category was established in 2024 along with redbreast sunfish, redear sunfish, black crappie and redhorse sucker," said Wildlife Resources Chief Paul Johansen. "Until this year, a record pumpkinseed sunfish hadn't been caught. Now we've had two in the last few weeks. Fishing in West Virginia is the place to be in the East."
South Dakota's fish is bigger, and the circumstances are odder. Jack Backman of Harrisburg and Garrett Johnson launched an 18-foot Lund onto 220-acre Wall Lake on the afternoon of 18 June looking for walleye. About two and a half hours in, something showed on Backman's forward-facing sonar.
"It was suspended two feet down in 14 feet of water," he said. "It was about 30 feet away from a tree, hanging near it when I made a cast."
The cast was a quarter-ounce black Northland tungsten jig with a whole nightcrawler, fished on braid to an 8-pound fluorocarbon leader.
"The fish hit immediately when it saw my lure, and I thought for sure it was a good crappie," Backman said. "When I saw it and its colors I knew it was a pumpkinseed. I've caught them in other lakes in other states like Iowa and North Dakota. I didn't know Wall Lake had 'em."
Nobody aboard had a scale. When they discovered the state record was just 12 ounces, set by Pat McCart at Lake Carthage in 1970, they borrowed a friend's Bubba scale, then persuaded a grocery store employee to weigh the fish on certified scales. One pound exactly. The state has accepted it, retiring a record that had stood 56 years.
The world mark is still out of reach. The International Game Fish Association carries a single pumpkinseed entry: the 1-pound 8-ounce all-tackle record taken by New York angler Robert Warne in 2016.
The fish is currently in a freezer. "I've fished Wall Lake previously and never knew or saw a pumpkinseed in it," Backman said. "But the state fisheries folks say they're in the lake. I still have the fish in my freezer, and I've been pretty busy working. But I will have a taxidermist mount made of it. They sure are pretty fish."
The wider point is a simple one for anyone who fishes small water. Records in minor species sit unclaimed for years because nobody weighs what they land. Backman was looking for walleye and found a 56-year-old record instead.