Pumpkinseed sunfish are not the kind of fish that usually make record books. They are a palm-sized panfish, gaudy and common, and mostly caught by accident. This summer they have produced three separate record claims in two states, and one of them came off a forward-facing sonar screen.
West Virginia only created a state record category for pumpkinseed in 2024, alongside redbreast sunfish, redear sunfish, black crappie and redhorse sucker. The slot sat empty for two years. It has now been filled twice in three weeks.
Ken Neer of Morgantown set the first mark on 25 June with a 9.09-inch, 0.60-pound fish taken on red worms and 4-pound test from Fairfax Pond at the Rehe Wildlife Management Area in Preston County. District 1 fisheries biologist Dustin Smith certified it.
It lasted 19 days. On 14 July, Sierra Adamson of Beverly landed a 9.13-inch, 0.62-pound pumpkinseed from the Tygart Valley River in Randolph County on a nightcrawler and 10-pound test. WVDNR fisheries biologist Stephen Floyd certified the new record 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 new record is a heavier fish and a stranger story. On the afternoon of 18 June, Jack Backman of Harrisburg was on 220-acre Wall Lake with Garrett Johnson, fishing from an 18-foot Lund and targeting walleye. Around 5:30 he marked something on his forward-facing sonar.
"It was suspended two feet down in 14 feet of water," Backman said. "It was about 30 feet away from a tree, hanging near it when I made a cast."
He threw a quarter-ounce black Northland tungsten jig loaded with a full nightcrawler on braid and an 8-pound fluorocarbon leader, and assumed he had a crappie.
"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."
The pair had no scale aboard. Once they learned the standing South Dakota record was only 12 ounces, set by Pat McCart in 1970 at Lake Carthage, they went looking for one, borrowed a friend's Bubba scale, then talked a grocery store employee into putting the fish on a certified set of scales. It weighed a pound. South Dakota has since ratified it, ending a 56-year-old record.
That still leaves room at the top. The International Game Fish Association lists only one pumpkinseed, the all-tackle world record of 1 pound 8 ounces caught by New York angler Robert Warne in 2016.
Backman has not had the fish mounted yet. "I've fished Wall Lake previously and never knew or saw a pumpkinseed in it," he 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."
There is a practical lesson buried in three ounces of sunfish. Record categories only fill when somebody weighs what they catch, and species this small go unrecorded for years simply because nobody thinks to check. Backman was hunting walleye and found a state record on the same screen.
