Pumpkinseed and aggression!!

I have found locally that the largest pumpkinseeds live in areas that are shallow, weedy, and full of food. By full of food I mean a soup of food, from small insects and crustaceans to clams and snails and lots of small fish like golden shiner to feed on.

I have seen that wound on pumpkinseeds often enough, the middle of the dorsal fin missing and an indent in the actual body of the fish. I am wondering if this is caused by a parasite when they are very small? Just because I have seen it often enough that it seemed odd that it was typical.

Bluegills and pumpkinseed grow large in the marsh, but bluegills tend towards drop offs near weed lines in deep water, which in the marsh is eight feet. Pumpkinseeds will be up in the weed beds, shallow two foot deep on average areas that are wide expanses of several acres.

Both species have to deal with pike, bowfin, and bass in large numbers, which I think weed out the smallest of the bunches. Competition for food is from many angles too, yellow perch, black and white crappie, all three of the big bullheads, and in some areas green sunfish, which don't seem to get very numerous in most of the marsh.

The further north comment was specific to pumpkinseeds, the relative size comment of more food and resources and space was to fish in general. Pumpkinseeds are the furthest North ranging of all the Lepomis species and seem to get largest in the northern part of their range but this may be due to some other factor like over fishing or a just plain out of balance system in what we typically see in the more southern part of their range. In Ontario Canada or some of the more northern states like Michigan or Wisconsin there are a lot more natural lakes that are in relatively good shape with intact communities of fish and other aquatic organisms and this alone may be the difference and not have anything to do with the physical location of the population.

I have to pipe in on the relative size of pumpkins also. I grew up in North Central lower Michigan, and often the pumpkinseeds were larger then the bluegills. I've caught them to well over 10". Just this last weekend I caught one likely 10 or close to it, on Chippewa Lake in Mecosta Co. Michigan.

I've been catching large pumpkinseed in Sodus Bay of Lake Ontario (east of Rochester) since I was a kid. I've definately had a few approaching 12in...

about pumpkinseeds and agression: My ~3-4 inch pumpkinseed(adult) occasionally chases my 2 inch green sunfish(juvenile) around when the green sunfish is in his face. I don't think he'll do it when the green gets larger as they are a agressive fish. But as far as a huge size difference I rarely see it.