Freshwater jewels

You’ve probably seen neon tetras, bleeding hearts, clownfish and yellow tangs in aquariums. In all likelihood a fish just as beautiful, or more so, swims in your lake.

For my money, no fish is prettier than the sunfish – officially the pumpkinseed. I sometimes question why they are named for something as nondescript as those off-white ovals pulled from Halloween jack-o-lanterns. But of course the name “sunfish” belongs to a family of fishes that include the bluegill. Still, what the experts call pumpkinseeds are always sunfish to me.

Bluegills are pretty fish in their own right, but they look pale next to sunfish: Those eyes with bright-red iris around the dark pupil. The wavy lines that radiate from the mouth across the gills, in a color like aquamarine charged by blacklight. The deep black gill spot with the accent of brilliant red. The subtle pattern of blue-and-emerald vertical bars across the golden body. And then that bright yellow-gold belly.

Years ago (and I’ll admit I did this illegally, without a permit) I kept a couple of sunfish in an aquarium – they looked great amid the green artificial weeds, lit by the fluorescent lamp, and our toddler daughter loved watching them.

Fortunately for us all, sunfish are extremely common. They’re generally not as abundant as their bluegill cousins, but you can find them in almost any lake. They live in the shallower water and in the weed beds, eating mostly insects and their larval forms. They prefer water temperatures in the low to mid-70s. They live up to 10 years and can grow to 8 or 9 inches, though you won’t often see specimens that size around here.

Sunfish are easy to catch. They’ll take almost any live bait – worms, grubs, crickets, small leeches – but also artificials like dry flies, poppers and small spinners. When fishing with kids, nothing will bring more cries of delight than one of these jewels, popped from the lake, multiple colors glistening in an evening sun.