Diver sets record for sunfish in South Dakota

Two divers from South Dakota and their wives set out on July 6 for a day of diving and boating on Pickerel Lake. The 2,500-acre spring-fed lake near Webster, South Dakota, is a popular boating spot.

“It was the 4th of Julye weekend and there were plenty of other boats around, and the water wasn’t super clear,” said Jason DeRoy Outdoor living. “My wife, Kelli, and Scott and Amber Steffensen, were in our group. Scott and I went overboard that afternoon with scuba gear to spear some fish. There was about four feet of visibility when I hit the bottom in 15 feet of water.”

DeRoy says he was near some deep weed beds and there were hundreds of small sunfish around him.

Two divers on a boat.
DeRoy (left) takes a seat on the boat next to his diving buddy Scott Steffensen.

Photo courtesy of Jason DeRoy

“They were postspawn fish, and most of them were small 6-inchers,” said DeRoy, an electrician from Clear Lake. “Sunfish shy away from diving bubbles. But if you wait patiently, they’ll get curious and come closer. I noticed one sunfish was bigger than the others, and when the little ones got close to me, the big one got closer. When he was four feet away, I got a good shot in the head.”

The spear from DeRoy’s air gun went right through the panfish. He was halfway through his dive, so he speared a few more smaller panfish and then headed back to his boat with a rain storm raging overhead.

Read more: The Ultimate Guide to Spearfishing

When he looked closer at the large sunfish, he saw that it was tagged. He put the fish on ice overnight and had it weighed the next day on a certified scale at a Clear Lake grocery store. It weighed exactly 1 pound. DeRoy then contacted Mark Ermer, a biologist with South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks at the Webster office.

A sunfish with a tag on it.
State biologists tagged the sunfish in 2020 and at the time it was about 6 inches long.

Photo courtesy of Jason DeRoy

“Mark was pretty excited about the tagged bluegill,” DeRoy said. “The state had tagged him in June of 2020 when he was 6.5 inches long. He had grown to 10 5/8 inches, which he thought was a pretty good growth rate.”

Read more: Meet the Alabama angler on a mission to breed (and catch) the next world record bluegill

The 1-pound bluegill has been certified by the state as a new record in its “unrestricted” division, which includes fish caught by methods other than rod and reel (e.g., spearfishing, snagging, and bowfishing).

“I’m going to do a real skin montage of the sunfish,” says DeRoy.

Bob McNally