Does anyone have a lead or supplier of Pumpkinseed sunfish?? Not afraid to drive to pick up 100-200 fish, even trade fish of some sort??? My RES are not doing as well as I think they should and am wondering if I'm high enough and cool enough the PSS would be a better choice.
"... am wondering if I'm high enough..." -If you have to wonder.....
"....and cool enough....." -Very subjective....
Excerpt from Robert Crais' "The Monkey's Raincoat:" "She took another microscopic bite of her sandwich, then pushed it away. Maybe she absorbed nutrients from her surroundings."
I was surprised to find that Kansas varies from 472 to 4,272 feet above sea level. Back in school we were taught that all you needed were a stick, six gopher holes, and a dozen rocks to shoot pool anywhere in Kansas.
"Live like you'll die tomorrow, but manage your grass like you'll live forever." -S. M. Stirling
Adult PS won't grow big enough to avoid predation by WAE or Saugeye. Keystone won't sell to anyone outside of Illinois. Smith Creek Fish Farm stopped shipping fish a number of years ago.
Keystone got spanked by the Feds a while back for selling fish out of state from a facility that they couldn't sell fish out of state from. Now when you purchase from them the sales invoice that you sign is actually a 4-6 page contract to cover their butt if you take the fish out of state. Last time I talked to Smith Creek they said NY changed the regs so it made it financially impossible to ship out of state.
Let me see what I can do. I might be able to trap enough out of a pond.
esshup, thanks for interjecting some actual expert information into the thread.
Any idea why there are no PSS suppliers in the Midcontinent and South? I just looked up the geographic distribution, and their natural range is from the states surrounding the Great Lakes down to South Carolina. Would they be a good fish in the Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas arc of ponds, or is it too warm? (It would be nice to have a sunfish in the RES niche that is easier to catch. I think they also eat snails?)
I thought we caught a few in a reservoir in SE Kansas when I was a kid. Seems odd since that is not in their range and no one supplies them in the area. Is it more likely we mis-identified a different type of sunfish? Pulling up the watershed fish map suggests that we were probably catching Orange-Spotted Sunfish, but my memory better matches the images of Pumpkinseeds - and that is how they identified in our fish picture book.
FishinRod, most likely supply and demand. They don't reproduce as much as Bluegill, more similar to RES. Few(er) hatcheries up North in their native range vs down south where RES grow.
Yes, they also have the pharyngeal teeth to crush snails, but they don't get anywhere as big as RES. Most sizes that we see here are 6", an 8" one is a true MONSTER. They do NOT colony nest like BG or RES, males make a nest that is roughly 3x the size that a male BG of the same size would make. If I can find one in a local lake next month that is spawning I will try to get a picture. A 6" male PS will make a nest that is 24" dia or a wee bit bigger.
I wonder if this would result in a big % or male off-spring? Seem to recall ewest had a chart showing the crosses and MRESxFPSS may result in lower ratio males than MPSSxFRES, can't remember but seems ratios were different.
You could have caught Longears, Many people in KS call them "pumpkin-seeds".
Thanks. Pretty sure you nailed it. Those images match my memory.
The Boy Scout leaders at the lake called them pumpkinseeds. When I was a young scout I was pretty sure all of the leaders were omniscient on every outdoors topic. Then I myself became a scout leader and realized how much stuff I DIDN'T know despite being outdoors every chance I got.
I knew that you knew the answer ahead of time. However, sometimes after making all of my bad "Dad" jokes, I have to throw out a few self-effacing jokes to balance things out.
Since you are back in this thread, I did want to ask: Are those Pumpkinseeds you (or a buddy) have all of the way down in Mississippi? Or are they pics from a more northern location?