Panfishing is a great way to bridge the gap between winter and spring. For the sake of brevity and clarity, to me that means casting for bluegill, crappie, and yellow perch. Thankfully, the Chesapeake watershed is chock full of ponds, lakes, creeks, and rivers, many of which usually hold copious numbers of these tasty panfish, as well as chain pickerel that sometimes hit the same bait or lures.
Football season is over, March Madness is still weeks away, and the rockfish season doesn’t start until the third Saturday in April. So here’s a panfish primer to get you off the couch and hooked up.
Bait or Lures? Yes
There isn’t much debate that live bait is the first choice of many fishermen. Grass shrimp or minnows on simple top-bottom rigs with #10 hooks or on a jighead, with or without a bobber, will often do the trick. I’ve caught panfish using a salted tube jig behind a jighead (3/32 oz. to 1/8 ounce depending on depth), and medium to small minnow.
In the lure department, panfish anglers have a plethora of options. The vast range of styles is almost dizzying, and the color combinations are Willy Wonka-like. Plastic grubs, skirted tube jigs, or spinnerbaits—the list goes on and on. So where to start? Here are four proven lures that should put a bend in your rod: Marabou Road Runner (Chartreuse), Mr. Crappie’s Slab Daddy, Betts Krinkle Jig, and Johnson Beetle Spin.
Rods & Reels
There are numerous ultra-light spinning reel and rod combos on the market, with prices ranging from $25 to close to $200. You want something that has enough finesse to toss light lures yet a stiff enough backbone to pull a slab panfish from heavy cover, or tame the occasional chain pickerel or catfish.
Berkley’s Lightning Rod is a solid choice, or one of the sticks in the St. Croix Panfish Series, which nicely blends sensitivity and balance with power. (In fact, one of these babies is on my wish list for 2017.) As for reels, almost any 1000 or 2000 series reel (or equivalent) will do the job. The key is finding one with a smooth drag. For example, there’s Shimano Sedona 1000FD or Abu Garcia Cardinal 100.
My go-to light-action rod these days is the Cove Chesapeake Series The Little Big Stick. Built on a light-power, carbon graphite blank, it handles line weight from four-pound test to ten pounds and lures from 1/8-3/8 ounce. Technically, it is not a specialty panfish rod since it’s stout enough to haul in a snapper bluefish or schoolie striper. But since the price is right, and it handles both tasks, it works for me. On one I have a Shimano Sahara reel with six-pound braid; the other is matched with a Penn Battle II, same line. I typically use an 18-inch shot of six-pound fluorocarbon as leader.
Pro Tip
My favorite crappie lure is a Calcutta 1/8-ounce jig head tipped with a Bass Pro Shop Squirmin Squirt one-inch tube jig with a really small live minnow. I sometimes work that deep and slow without a float. And I sometimes work that under a balsa wood float pretty deep under the float (six to eight feet). I prefer the balsa wood float because it stands upright in the water when the jig is stretched out under it. Often the crappie will grab the jig and continue upward to ward the float, putting slack in the line between the jig and the float. The balsa wood float will immediately lie on its side to indicate the strike, and other style floats will not show you that.
~Captain Walt of Light Tackle Charters, Pocomoke City, MD
by Captain Chris D. Dollar
Tuesday, March 1, 2016 - 08:45
Panfishing is a great way to bridge the gap between winter and spring. For the sake of brevity and clarity, to me that means casting for bluegill, crappie, and yellow perch. Thankfully, the Chesapeake watershed is chock full of ponds, lakes, creeks, and rivers, many of which usually hold copious numbers of these tasty panfish, as well as chain pickerel that sometimes hit the same bait or lures.
Football season is over, March Madness is still weeks away, and the rockfish season doesn’t start until the third Saturday in April. So here’s a panfish primer to get you off the couch and hooked up.
Bait or Lures? Yes
There isn’t much debate that live bait is the first choice of many fishermen. Grass shrimp or minnows on simple top-bottom rigs with #10 hooks or on a jighead, with or without a bobber, will often do the trick. I’ve caught panfish using a salted tube jig behind a jighead (3/32 oz. to 1/8 ounce depending on depth), and medium to small minnow.
In the lure department, panfish anglers have a plethora of options. The vast range of styles is almost dizzying, and the color combinations are Willy Wonka-like. Plastic grubs, skirted tube jigs, or spinnerbaits—the list goes on and on. So where to start? Here are four proven lures that should put a bend in your rod: Marabou Road Runner (Chartreuse), Mr. Crappie’s Slab Daddy, Betts Krinkle Jig, and Johnson Beetle Spin.
Rods & Reels
There are numerous ultra-light spinning reel and rod combos on the market, with prices ranging from $25 to close to $200. You want something that has enough finesse to toss light lures yet a stiff enough backbone to pull a slab panfish from heavy cover, or tame the occasional chain pickerel or catfish.
Berkley’s Lightning Rod is a solid choice, or one of the sticks in the St. Croix Panfish Series, which nicely blends sensitivity and balance with power. (In fact, one of these babies is on my wish list for 2017.) As for reels, almost any 1000 or 2000 series reel (or equivalent) will do the job. The key is finding one with a smooth drag. For example, there’s Shimano Sedona 1000FD or Abu Garcia Cardinal 100.
My go-to light-action rod these days is the Cove Chesapeake Series The Little Big Stick. Built on a light-power, carbon graphite blank, it handles line weight from four-pound test to ten pounds and lures from 1/8-3/8 ounce. Technically, it is not a specialty panfish rod since it’s stout enough to haul in a snapper bluefish or schoolie striper. But since the price is right, and it handles both tasks, it works for me. On one I have a Shimano Sahara reel with six-pound braid; the other is matched with a Penn Battle II, same line. I typically use an 18-inch shot of six-pound fluorocarbon as leader.
Pro Tip
My favorite crappie lure is a Calcutta 1/8-ounce jig head tipped with a Bass Pro Shop Squirmin Squirt one-inch tube jig with a really small live minnow. I sometimes work that deep and slow without a float. And I sometimes work that under a balsa wood float pretty deep under the float (six to eight feet). I prefer the balsa wood float because it stands upright in the water when the jig is stretched out under it. Often the crappie will grab the jig and continue upward to ward the float, putting slack in the line between the jig and the float. The balsa wood float will immediately lie on its side to indicate the strike, and other style floats will not show you that.
~Captain Walt of Light Tackle Charters, Pocomoke City, MD
by Captain Chris D. Dollar