It's often hard to decide what season and species of fish is
our favorite.
The biggest walleyes and saugers of the year are often
caught just after ice-out when water still freezes in the guides of our St.
Croix rods. Late spring is a great time for bass, both largemouth and
smallmouth, and muskies, one of our favorites.
Many anglers hang up their fishing gear when the weather
turns hot, though walleye fishing at night can have some of the best action of
the year. But daytime anglers believe fishing during the summer is tough. Lots
of food in the water translates to narrow feeding windows. Some think a trip to
the lake may be a waste of time.
If that's your view, think again. Panfish can offer some
great summer action for older anglers and kids alike. It can be the best time
of year to hook kids and grandkids on the sport by catching crappies and
bluegills. And scaling down the size of the gear can make the fight worth the
time.
Bluegills and crappies also have other advantages. For one,
they inhabit many lakes and ponds, so there are usually plenty of opportunities
to fish for them close to home. For
another, they're often overlooked by other anglers so you have great spots to
yourself. Catching a walleyes can be a bonus because they're often located in
the same places as the panfish.
Find and Catch Big Panfish
Finding fish usually isn't hard. Finding the biggest fish in
the lake is the challenge. The process starts with finding lakes with solid
panfish populations plus a good quantity of predators like bass or muskies.
Check with your state's Department of Natural Resource biologists. They know
the honey holes. If a lake is out of the way and a little harder to reach,
that's even better.
Check out the lake map to find the weeds, then look for weed
edges that offer something different, such as a point, an inside turn or gaps
in the midst of plant life, or a transition from one kind of plant to another.
GPS will help map the weed edge to locate fish-holding twists and turns.
Work a Lindy Rig slowly along the edge. A number 6 or number
8 Aberdeen hook works best with NO-SNAG sinkers. Use a longer, flexible 7-foot
rod to avoid pulling hooks out of thin mouths. Use 4- to 6-pound-test Silver
Thread line. For bluegills, use a small leech and small minnows for crappies.
Target 10 feet on shallow lakes to 20 feet on deeper, clear
lakes. Move slowly in S turns to check deeper water nearby. Walleye will often
be five feet deeper or so than the panfish. Big crappies are often nearby, too.
Watch your sonar because crappies might be suspended.
Jigs also work on weed lines. Try using Lindy Fuzz-E-Grub or
Watsit jigs. The Watsit features tiny flippers that cause a slow fall which
keeps it in the strike zone longer.
Experiment with colors. Add a
piece of a nightcrawler or a wax worm. If the fish appear to be stacked in one
area, switch to a slip-bobber rig.
Fish may move off the weedline to deeper water at midday.
Trolling, where legal, or drifting can keep the action coming. Use a three-way
rig where regulations allow two lures per line. Use one bait for bluegills and
the other for crappies. A small Fuzz-E-Grub goes on the dropper and a twister
tail goes on a hook on the trailer. Experiment with colors. Black is a great
choice to mimic a bluegill's favorite food, insects. Or, trade the plastic for
a small silver ice spoon. Use several different kinds of rigs to start and see
what yields the most fish.
Set your trolling motor so you move slowly and quietly to
avoid spooking fish. Use icons on the GPS or buoys to mark fish when you get
strikes. Drifting a minnow, tiny tubes, a half crawler or leech is a good idea,
too.
How deep to set baits depends on the thermocline. Every
summer when weather gets hot, a dividing point sets up between water below it
with less oxygen and the water holding more oxygen above it. Fish generally
will try to find their comfort zone temperature-wise, but oxygen is the
deciding factor. If there's no oxygen at the temperature they like, they will
settle for warmer water. The thermocline should show up on good electronics as
a line across the screen at a certain depth. If it doesn't appear, try setting
the unit to manual and crank up the sensitivity until the line appears.
For crappies, you can also try casting small crankbaits
along weed lines. Crappies near wood is the often the answer in reservoirs.
Look for standing timber on points. Tight-line small jigs and plastic or
minnows on longer rods. Let the bait down to the bottom and reel up a turn or
two, then another foot and another until fish are located. Rather than reeling
that first fish in, lift your rod and use it to measure the active depth. That
makes it easy to return the jig to the right spot. Slip bobbers will do the same thing.
Deeper brush piles and fish cribs are deadly during the hot
months. Locate them on lake maps. Brush piles can be seen with side-imaging
sonar. Track down the untouched ones by looking for turns in the old river
channel where brush collects. Then use your sonar to pinpoint the spot, drop a
marker buoy or use an electronic "marker" on your GPS to stay
unnoticed.
Limits for panfish are often generous. But that's not an
invitation to over-harvest them. Studies indicate that taking too many big
bluegills can stunt a lake's population. Scientists believe if you take the
biggest ones form the lake, natural selection no longer favors big bluegills
and bluegills start reproducing at smaller sizes, leading to stunting. Take a
meal for the family and leave the rest.
Keep a tight line!
Ron
