One of my favorite fishing trips is taking my young daughters to Crane Falls Lake. It’s a tradition I started when my oldest, Quinn, was 3. She’s 8 now, and little sister Skye is 5. And every summer, they look forward to our Crane Falls getaway.
Crane Falls is great for young anglers. It’s a quaint, remote lake with a soundtrack of frogs and waterfowl. It’s also a great little fishing spot — we always catch plenty of bluegill and largemouth bass, along with my kids’ favorite species: the pumpkinseed sunfish.
I’m not surprised the pumpkinseed became my girls’ favorite. With electric blue spiderwebbing across their faces and bright yellow to deep orange chests, these little panfish are among the best-looking fish swimming in Idaho waters. For Quinn and Skye, a small seed often surpasses the excitement of a big bass.
Crane Falls is a great place to catch pumpkinseeds, and we typically find a handful each trip. On this trip, we were catching the usual assortment of bluegill and largemouth, with a few six-inch pumpkinseeds mixed in.
A couple hours in, we found an area crawling with big bluegill. I anchored the boat, and we started sight-fishing for slabs. It was a fun and hilarious game of cat-and-mouse — there were a few tiny fish amongst the big ones, and if you could keep your jig away from the riffraff, a big gill was sure to snatch it.
The fight of a big bluegill on ultralight tackle is hard to beat. For nearly an hour, we giggled with delight as porkchop-sized gills — and the occasional dink who beat the big guys to the lure — came over the side of the boat. And then, it happened: the biggest panfish yet gobbled a jig. But as it tried to swim toward a nearby patch of weeds, I saw a telltale red spot on its earflap.
“Girls!” I marveled. “This one’s a pumpkinseed! Hurry, get him in the boat!”
With Skye on the reel and Quinn on net duty, we landed our quarry. This was the biggest pumpkinseed I’d ever seen — a portly nine-inch male, dressed to the nines in his spawning colors. I couldn’t remember exactly what the catch-and-release state record was, but I had a hunch we’d just broken it.
“Ok, ladies,” I announced. “We are going to treat this fish like it’s the new state record.”
Quinn and Skye were giddy as we collected our documentation: an official measurement (he was 9 1/8 inches) and photos of the fish, both with them holding it, and against the measuring tape. With our data in hand, we released the fish and finished out our evening with sausages and smores over the campfire.
The next day, I looked up Idaho Fish and Game’s online record book, and shared the photo with my fish-nerd buddies. Based on its markings, we theorized the fish might actually be a pumpkinseed/bluegill hybrid. But either way, it would make the record book!
I submitted the catch and release record paperwork to IDFG, who concluded the fish was indeed a pumpkinseed/bluegill hybrid. They also graciously agreed to let Quinn and Skye share the record — a core memory that will live forever in the Rodriguez Family fishing lore.
I’ve said before that in fishing, some catches feel like they were written in the stars. And experiencing a state record catch with my girls — of their favorite species, on their favorite lake — definitely fits the bill. Tight lines!