Punkinseed

I grew up in the Land of 10,000 Lakes, Minnesota. It actually has more like 12,512 lakes and 90,000 miles of shoreline. That’s more shoreline than California, Florida and Hawaii combined! So I did some fishing as a child. We caught Northerns, Walleyes, Bass and Perch, but the most fun and the best eating were the simple Sunfish! If you found a good spot, you could just pull them in one after another! They weren’t that big, but they always put up a good fight. We knew a bay on Lake Lizzy near Detroit Lakes, MN, where we regularly caught 3/4 lb. to 1-1/2 lb. Pumpkinseed Sunnies. We would catch them by the cooler-full. Then we would scale them and fillet them. Then we would batter and fry them up; invite the whole clan and a few strays over. We’d fry up ‘chips’ (potato wedges); make tossed and 3 bean salads; and have plenty of beer and other libation on hand. We would have a Minnesota fish fry, where the fish is finger-lickin’ good! One time I was cleaning a cooler full of Sunnies on our back patio and our mailman came around back for a signature for something. He saw how I was filleting the fish. He got down on his knees and showed me a better method that would get more meat out of the fish.
My dad always intentionally mispronounced this variety of Sunfish and called them “Punkinseeds” for fun.