hand-painted bream n
A sunfish n 1a: usu a boldly marked color variant of the bluegill n 1 found chiefly in southern Georgia and northern Florida.
1957 Ft. Pierce News–Tribune (FL) 15 Sept 9/1, The Apalachicola river . . has in its waters one of the rarest and most beautiful of all fresh water fishes, the “hand painted bream.” 1970 Field & Stream Nov 108, Another variant [of the bluegill] . . is known as the handpainted bream, pied bluegill, or spot. . . The male’s breeding season coloration is most distinctive. An irregularly shaped patch of scales just behind the pectorals fades to a milky color, and a jet-black blotch appears in the middle of this bleached area. The blotch is less intense at other times of the year—but nevertheless evident. Handpainted bream are limited to the waters of south Georgia. 1995 News Herald (Panama City FL) 22 Aug sec D 6/3, There must have been a dozen big hand-painted bream, numerous “government” bream, and several large shellcrackers. 2010 in 2016 DARE File—Internet nwFL, Locally they are called Hand Painted Bream. I have caught them in the Apalachicola river from the Woodruff dam in Chattahoochee to where the water turns brackish, all of the smaller rivers and creeks that fall into the Apalachicola river in Liberty county . . and also in the upper and lower Oklochnee river from Gadsden county to Wakulla county where the water turns brackish. I have only caught them in running water and have never caught them in a pond. 2013 Ibid nwFL, [Resp to photo of what appears to be Lepomis megalotis or L. marginatus:] The old timers up on Escambia river always called them “hand painted bream.”