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.
