Sunfish

“ So, after you have caught the freelance sunfish of the pool, those which have no family cares, do not drop your bait near her nest, for if you do she will dart out and take it, and it is a pity to have the brook lose her. She has made her nest in the one shallow spot where the bright sunlight plays, and you may see every dapple of her lovely sides as the light glances on them. ”

“ There are many species of the sunfish, and there may be a half dozen of them in the same brook, but that makes no difference; for our purposes they are all as one. They lie poised in the water, with all fins spread, strutting like turkey-cocks, snapping at worms and little crustaceans and insects whose only business in the brook is that the fishes may eat them. When the time comes, the sunfish makes its nest in the fine gravel, building it with some care—for a fish. When the female has laid her eggs the male stands guard till the eggs are hatched. ”

“ Not a breath of air stirs the surface of the woodland pond, and the trees about the margin are reflected unbroken in its surface. The lilies and their pads lie motionless, and in and out through the shadowy depths, around the long stems, float a school of half a dozen little sunfish. They move slowly, turning from side to side all at once as if impelled by one idea. Now and then one will dart aside and snap up a beetle or mosquito larva, then swing back to its place among its fellows. ”

“ The sunfish lays its eggs in the spring in a rude nest it scoops in the gravel, over which it stands guard with its bright fins spread, looking as big and dangerous as possible. When thus employed it takes the hook savagely, perhaps regarding the worm as a dangerous enemy. The young fishes soon hatch, looking very much like their parents, although more transparent and not so brightly colored. They grow rapidly, feeding on insects and other small creatures, and reach their growth in two or three years. They do not wander far and never willingly migrate. ”

“ Some coloring matter is under the scales also, and this especially makes the back darker than the lower parts. The bright colors of the sunfish change with its surroundings or with its feelings. When it lies in wait under a dark log its colors are very dark. When it rests above the white sands it is very pale. When it is guarding its nest from some meddling perch its red shades flash out as it stands with fins spread, as though a water knight with lance at rest, looking its fiercest at the intruder. ”

“ The sunfish has no economic value, and is rarely, if ever, eaten.
Whilst the rough sunfish has a granulated, rough, shagreen-like skin, the second species (O. truncatus) has the surface of the body smooth and polished, with its small dermal scutes arranged in a tessellated fashion. It is oblong in shape, the body being much longer than it is deep. ”

“ Both bite voraciously at worms, live bait, hellgramites and spoonhooks, and show gallant fight when hooked.
47. The Sunfish. Bream. Pumpkin Seed. Lepomis gibbosus. (See cut opposite.)
Length, eight inches. Color, back, olive green; sides, bluish; belly, yellow.
Common in quiet, shallow waters, where it occupies certain spots as a regular dwelling-place. Being very bony, it is of little account as a foodfish. The Sunfish bites readily at worms. ”

“ From time to time they nibble the weeds at the bottom or overhanging their nests, or dart after a fly or worm. The dorsal fin, besides answering the purpose of a keel, with the anal, serves to keep the fish upright, for in shallow water, where this is not covered, they fall on their sides. As you stand thus stooping over the sunfish in its nest, the edges of the dorsal and caudal fins have a singular dusty golden reflection, and its eyes, which stand out from the head, are transparent and colourless. ”

“ Where the fish feels at its best the colors are the richest. There are some fishes, too, in which the male grows very brilliant in the breeding season through the deposition of red, white, black, [Pg 9] or blue pigments, or coloring matter, on its scales or on its head or fins, this pigment being absorbed when the mating season is over. This is not true of the sunfish, who remains just about the same at all seasons. The male and female are colored alike and are not to be distinguished without dissection. ”

“ During the stormy season they live probably at some depth, but in calm, bright weather they rise and rest or play on the surface with their dorsal fin high above the water. This habit has given rise to the popular name "sunfish," a term also sometimes applied to the basking-shark. In some years the rough sunfish is by no means scarce on the south coast of England and on the Irish coasts, where it appears principally in the summer months. ”

“ We will leave the funny little Sea-horse, and look at a very different fish--the Sunfish. This remarkable fish often reaches a good size; even near our coast big ones are caught now and again, and in warmer seas, where they are often killed for the sake of the oil they contain, big fellows of half a ton are quite common. ”

“ After the Toyman had taken the sunfish from the hook and put another worm on it, he threw the line back into the water.
Then all the three children and the two dogs sat watching the little rings in the water around the floaters. Sometimes farther out they saw larger rings, and a fish feeling pretty happy, because of the cool September weather, would jump out of the water and turn a somersault through the air.
Then all of a sudden the blue and yellow floater went under and little Hepzebiah caught a sunfish, too. ”

“ It is a swift, voracious, and predatory fish, feeding even on its own kind. The sunfish is less greedy and its mouth and teeth are smaller, though it too eats other fish.
As means of escape, most fishes depend on their speed in swimming. But some hide among rocks and weeds, disguising themselves by a change in color to match their surroundings. Others, like the flounders and skates, lie flat on the bottom. Still others retreat to the shallows or the depths or the rock-pools or to any place safer than the open sea. Some are protected by spines which they erect when attacked. ”

“ Its habits of feeding and spawning are similar to those of the blue sunfish, though it usually inhabits smaller streams; it grows to a length of from six to eight inches, and is regarded as a good pan-fish by many. ”

“ Everything that is done by the fish, inside or outside, receives the attention of the little branches of the great nerve-cord.
The Fish's Nest.—The sunfish in the spawning time will build some sort of a nest of stones on the bottom of the eddy, and then, when the eggs are laid, the male with flashing eye and fins all spread will defend the place with a good deal of spirit. All this we call instinct. He fights as well the first time as the last. The pressure of the eggs suggests nest-building to the female. The presence of the eggs tells the male to defend them. ”

“ No fishes have any external ear, all their hearing apparatus being buried in the skull. They cannot hear very much: possibly a great jar or splash in the water may reach them, but whenever they hear any noise they swim off to a hiding-place, for any disturbance whatever in the water must arouse a fish's anxiety. The color of the live sunfish is very brilliant. Its body is covered with scales, hard and firm, making a close coat of mail, overlapping one another like shingles on a roof. ”

“ Green sunfish were taken at all stations, but most abundantly at the upper Neosho station where the number captured increased slightly from 1957 to 1959. Young-of-the-year and adults were most common in shallow backwater. At the upper Neosho station green sunfish inhabit quiet pools, where recaptures of marked fish indicated that the species is notably sedentary in habit. ”

“ With a six-ounce fly-rod, and any of the flies named for black bass, the fly-fisher will find this fish worthy of his steel, as it grows to two pounds in weight.
The Blue Sunfish (Lepomis pallidus) is a very common and widely-diffused species. In the South, it is known as the “Blue Bream,” and “Copper-nosed Bream.” Its mouth is quite small. In color it is olivaceous or bluish-green, with a distinct dusky spot on the last rays of dorsal and anal fins. The dorsal has ten spines, eleven rays; anal, three spines and ten soft rays. It is closely allied to the following species. ”

“ Other fish who have just been weaned and are beginning to notice solid food will repeatedly take a hook too large to swallow, and be dragged into the boat, literally, by the skin of the teeth. Note the cheerful little sunfish, four inches long, which is caught first on one side of the boat and then on the other, by the patient fisherman angling off a rocky, weedy point for bass. ”

“ All stations excepting 1-S, 2-S, 4-S, 8-S, 9-G, 15-S, 22-G, 25-S, 30-M, 32-G, 34-M, 38-S, 39-S, 41-S, 42-S, 43-S, 44-S, 45-M, 46-M, 47-M, 50-S, and 52-S.
Green sunfish occurred primarily in the muddy streams. The ages and total lengths at the last annulus for 25 specimens are as follows: I, 1.1 (9) ; II, 2.2 (4) ; III, 3.1 (7) ; IV, 5.4 (4) ; and V, 6.0 (1) . Male green sunfish were seen on nests on June 29, July 1, and July 9, 1958. ”

“ This is the way the fish looks to the fishhawks or herons in the air above it who may come to the stream to look for fish. Those fishes which from above look most like the bottom can most readily hide and save themselves. The under side of the sunfish is paler, and most fishes have the belly white. Fishes with white bellies swim high in the water, and the fishes who would catch them lie below. To the fish in the water all outside the water looks white, and so the white-bellied fishes are hard for other fishes to see, just as it is hard for us to see a white rabbit bounding over the snow. ”

“ They are not bony, and at all seasons afford delicate eating. Having observed a considerable change in their color in different parts of the United States, and in different streams, ponds, or lakes, I was led to think that this curious effect might be produced by the difference of color in the water. Thus the Sunfish caught in the deep waters of Green River, in Kentucky, exhibit a depth of olive-brown quite different from the general tint of those caught in the colorless waters of the Ohio or Schuylkill ”

“ The fishes in which the average country boy is interested are the larger ones—such as the goggle-eye, the sucker, chub, and sunfish—those which, when caught, will fill up the string and tickle the palate. ”

“ Black alders stand cooling [Pg 95] their feet all about the edge. Crowding them into the water are the great oaks and maples whose limbs yearn above the pool till they shut out the sun. Along one side the current has cut deep to the rough rocks and the water flows black and swift. On the other the back-wash circles leisurely and the bottom shallows to a bank of sand where the sunfish build their nests and the fresh-water clams burrow and put up suppliant mouths to the food-bearing current. ”

“ The names and location of the principal organs are shown in the accompanying figure, from Kellogg's Zoology. It represents the blue-green sunfish, Apomotis cyanellus, from the Kansas River, but in these regards all the species of sunfishes are alike. We may first glance at the different organs as shown in the sequence of dissection, leaving a detailed account of each to the subsequent pages.
The Viscera.—Opening the body cavity of the fish, as shown in the plate, we see below the back-bone a membranous sac closed and filled with air. ”

“ The fresh-water sunfishes, of which there are about 25 species, abound in the Mississippi valley. They are bass-like fishes. The most common one is generally known as the pumpkin-seed. It reaches a length of eight inches and is of bright colors—greenish olive, with bluish sides spotted with orange, and the belly and lower fins orange-tinted. It is very abundant in ponds, lakes and streams of the east. In western rivers sunfishes rarely come south of the latitude of Chicago. The marine sunfish or head-fish belongs to an entirely different family. ”

“ In this manner are the Sunfishes caught by the regular or "scientific" anglers, and a beautiful sight it is to see the ease and grace with which they allure the objects of their desire, whether in the open turbulence of the waters, or under the low boughs of the overhanging trees, where, in some deep hole, a swarm of the little creatures may be playing in fancied security. ”

“ We always had to work hard, but if we worked still harder we were occasionally allowed a little spell in the long summer evenings about sundown to fish, and on Sundays an hour or two to sail quietly without fishing-rod or gun when the lake was calm. Therefore we gradually learned something about its inhabitants,—pickerel, sunfish, black bass, perch, shiners, pumpkin-seeds, ducks, loons, turtles, muskrats, etc. ”

“ The Nigger-fish. The Pompano280 Catching Spanish Mackerel on the Edge of the Gulf Stream300 The Black Grunt.The Red Snapper322 The Jolt-head Porgy. The Lady-fish. The Cobia348 Taking Bonito by trolling off Block Island350 The Angel-fish. The Turbot384 BASS, PIKE, AND PERCH
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CHAPTER I THE SUNFISH FAMILY (Centrarchidæ)
The sunfish family is composed entirely of fresh-water fishes. They are characterized by a symmetrically-shaped body, rather short and compressed; mouth terminal; teeth small, without canines; scales rather large; cheeks and gill-covers scaly; scales mostly smooth ”