Panfish forums?

[TOXIC]

I fish mainly crappie and it’s strictly for tablefare and fun.  When I was guiding, it was all live bait but now we devote a number of days past the first frost to fill the freezer with crappie and bluegill fillets.  Years ago I used a 2 man Bass Hunter pvc boat with rod holders and an electric trolling motor on the transom to troll the local electric only lakes for crappie.  2 ultralight spinning rods and my daughter in the front seat and we would fill a 2 person limit (50) limit in about 3 hours.  She loved it and she was a very picky eater but loved crappie fillets.  Of course that meant I spent a lot of time with a fillet knife in my hand. I used 1/16oz size jig heads with 4lb test and 1 inch tubes or curly tail grubs, trolled at whatever speed kept them off the bottom.  Nowadays I use the same baits but from a bassboat.  I use a slip float and don’t troll but cast around structure, brush piles, docks, bridge pilings, etc.  I usually keep a couple of limits a year for the freezer.  

[CoryRobertLowe]

On 2/20/2025 at 6:12 AM, SC53 said:

I fish for panfish exclusively with artificials and fly.

Bluegill, shellcrackers, redbreast, stumpknockers, warmouth and crappie ( which is not really a panfish per se).

With the right downsized tackle they are a blast and a challenge.

For spinning, 6’-7’ ultra light to medium light rods, 2000-2500 reel and 4-6# braid and short leader.

Baitcasting same size rod, BFS reel, 6-8# braid and same leader.

Fly 4-5 wt.

Lures are 1/32-1/8 oz jigs and beetle spins, with and without curly tails. I do catch them on small plastics too. 

Flies are spiders ( floating and sinking), wooly buggers, nymphs and such. I have much better luck on sub surface flies than surface.

Colors range from white to black and all colors in between depending on conditions.

This was my biggest last year and came on fly, 1.5# shellcracker. 

 

 

 

@SC53, I would love to learn from you, since I want to use artificial. I know it's a vague question, but what are some of your strategies? How do you approach a body of water? Any tips would be most appreciated.

 

Do you cover water, or do you basically know where the fish are at every time? Mostly weeds?

[SC53]

@CoryRobertLowe I fish a lot of different areas.  Rivers and lakes. I mainly fish shorelines. Sometimes you can fish open water of a lake but you need to be in an area where they are, like if you find a bedding area. These can be found with side scan and look like little pockets on the bottom.
Otherwise, running a shoreline is best for me. I’ll fish what may look like a barren shore to the naked eye but it will have underwater structure that holds them. Wood or weeds. Fishing outside edges of pads, bulrushes and reeds is good at times too, especially during the spawn.

I’ll typically throw small spinners and jigs if using traditional gear. You might have to go to a heavier jig in deeper water. I like subsurface flies when fly fishing. Surface flies ( spiders and poppers) work well too and the bite is a lot more fun but I catch more underwater. Bigger flies will get the larger fish with some bass thrown in but fewer. For quantity go small baits, flies and jigs.

Colors are water clarity dependent as is cloud conditions.

Lighter/ natural colors when sunny, darker colors when cloudy.

Hard to beat black, black/blue, olive or brown for subsurface flies.

Jigs and spinners the colors choices are almost endless. But the cloudy/sunny rule still apply.

Hope this helps.