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Saturday, April 13, 2019

Catching Panfish: Year Round




Prize Panfish



By Bruce Litton





          Rock bass, pumpkinseeds, bluegills, redbreast sunfish, green sunfish, crappies, yellow perch and white perch, they all taste great when fried in a skillet, but more to them exists than a grab bag taken home after fishing. I mention rock bass first for two reasons. They’re a secret favorite of mine because of my fly fishing as a boy at Stony Brook in Mercer County, and because my son and I never caught any on our favorite Lake Hopatcong until last year. One of those, almost a pound, took a herring set for walleye, 25 feet down. They’re not proper bass, but not sunfish, either, and the more familiar you become with them, the less of a nuisance they may seem.

          Every panfish is a beauty. Rings, pearls, and all the rosy hues of sunrise. Steal away under cover of twilight, and let the sun’s first rays find reflection. Even brown tones on a rock bass have luster to admire. Pumpkinseeds feature fantastic colors. When hooked, rock bass and crappies don’t kick like bluegills or pumpkinseeds, but if every fish fought the same, we could never feel variety in the game’s wonder. Redbreasts don’t grow as large as other panfish. Nor do green sunfish, although I’ve caught some weighing nearly a pound on the Delaware River, fighting hard on light tackle.

          A good friend of mine, Noel Sell, specializes in panfish, using a Loomis rod and Daiwa Certrate 1003 spinning reel. He fishes VMC Mooneye, Lunker City Fin-S, and Cubby jigs, among others. Jigging, even plugging for perch and crappies, will satisfy in sporting ways, but why turn your nose down on small nightcrawlers? Live bait given, for fish taken, immerses you in nature. Lures never balance natural approach to natural pursuit as bait can. We never bother with bobbers, crimping split shots and often pressing a Berkeley Worm Blower, instead. A hypodermic needle injects air into a crawler’s tail. Some fishing is hot enough to skip this tactic, when we use nightcrawler pieces to save supply.

           It’s up to you. My son and I fish lures or bait as we find fit. You don’t need a Loomis rod and an expensive reel for either purpose, unless the likes suit your pleasure. We use ultra-light rods I built myself from St. Croix blanks, not to save money, savings were little, but for the personal value of craft well done. The 1000-series reels we mount cost about 50 bucks. I also enjoy catching redbreast sunfish on nymph patterns at the North Branch Raritan, on my 2-weight TFO fly rod and Flyrise 1 reel.

           Panfishing happens year round. When Orion the Hunter slips behind sunlight, silvery white perch are a South Jersey winter chase, yellow perch classic ice fishing statewide. I never forget a January foray for sunfish at a Stony Brook pool, edged by ice, below a dam eight feet high just upstream of Carter Road. I was 12 years old and desperate for a bite on my worm, which never happened, but in the mansion of memory, it is the best attempt. I still feel the bitter cold. And relish it.

          If you fish a pond early in the spring for bass, and that water temperature you’re so eager to witness hit the 50-degree mark isn’t there, you might spot sunnies in the shallows. Usually they’re small, but the size you want to hook position a little deeper where you don’t see them. They’ll take worms or nightcrawlers. They’ll knock a jig, too. On lakes, such as Hopatcong, Greenwood, Assunpink, or Union, various reservoirs too, maneuver a boat into coves and fish those residual weeds. If coves aren’t weedy, such as Spruce Run Reservoir’s, you’ll still find fish in protected spots. White perch will position deep, however, and during the fall, we often catch them on herring in Lake Hopatcong, while fishing for walleye and hybrid stripers.

         Warm water finds panfish almost everywhere deep as weeds grow, and shallower, but white perch roam openly. On Manasquan Reservoir, we once trolled Rat-L-Traps behind the electric-powered boat as we shuttled between spots, seeking largemouths. Maybe hybrid stripers would hit.

          Whack! “Hey, it’s a pretty good fish!”

          But not hybrid. One after another, we caught white perch in deep open water, each about a pound-and-a-half. I regret not tossing them on the boat’s floor to take home and fry. My specialist friend might commend our releasing them, since he’s conservation minded, but he does own a meat smoker and uses it on fish.

          Panfish come easily. Go light and you’ll get some. Unless the challenge involves a frigid stream, you can almost always count on plenty. The ultimate test is to get over any denigration and prize them. I’ve secretly acknowledged their status ever since that day near Princeton.



https://littonsfishinglines.blogspot.com/2011/09/stony-brook-princeton-carp-attempt.html


          

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