Writer Jim Matthews is an unabashed fan of sunfish, all sunfish. But pumpkinseed are easily the prettiest of all the fish in the sunfish family, with radiating colors of bronze, green, and metallic brown. They have pale blue vermiculations across the gill plate and a reddish-orange tip to the black opercular flap. But like the prettiest sister or the most handsome son in any family, they aren’t very bright. This makes them perfect fish for R.G. Fann, my brother-in-law, and Jim.

We used to make annual trips to Big Bear Lake to catch them in the spring and early summer when they massed in the shallows of the lake’s bays. With lower reproductive rates than bluegill, they practically disappeared from Big Bear for a number of years, but Jim has good authority their numbers have rebounded and we may be there now as you read this.

Sadly, pumpkinseed aren’t as widely distributed as bluegill or their closest cousin, the redear, and they don’t get as big either. According to Samuel M. McGinnis, the author of Freshwater Fishes of California, Big Bear is the only place they occur in Southern California, but they are also found in nearby Green Valley Lake. Jim thinks that they have been brought there by anglers who liked them. McGinnis says they are also found in Honey Lake, a number of waters in Santa Clara County, and in the Klamath, Lost, and Susan river drainages’ reservoirs and backwaters. Put them on your California bucket list.