Panfish are a bonus to a vast number of Americans who appreciate them. But they're also passed up by anglers who haven't discovered their sporting qualities and thus miss a lot of extra fun.
When panfish are present in a body of water they're usually plentiful, although their size sometimes is unsatisfactory. They are willing biters, and when feeding will readily take natural or artificial baits. Hence they can be a challenge to fly-rod fisherman and cane-pole enthusiast. Not to mention the spinning rods or bait casters. I often call them Fun-fish instead of Sunfish.
Here we'll consider a few of the leading sunfish: the bluegill, pumpkin seed, green sunfish, red-breasted bream (or yellow belly), and long-eared sunfish. They are basically alike but differ somewhat in appearance, coloration, and size. All are courageous, hard-fighting fish, and make some really good eating.
The bluegill is perhaps the best known and most sought after of sunfish, and also the largest. Found in some streams, he is primarily a fish of the lakes, where he is taken summer and winter. His natural range comprises the Great Lakes region and a strip of southern Canada running eastward to Lake Champlain in New York; southward, it covers the Mississippi Valley to the Gulf States and the Rio Grande, and in the East to Florida. I guess I should just list the places they are not found – it will be a shorter list.
The bluegill's general color is an olive green, lighter on the sides, that verge on blue or purple in some specimens. Cheeks, top of head, and gill covers are bluish; the gill-cover flap, black. The bluegill often shows faint bars on its sides, but these are likely to fade quickly when the fish is taken from water. There is a black splotch on the posterior rays of the dorsal fin. The bluegill has no red or orange spots, as some sunfish do, but the forepart of its belly may be bright orange or yellow.
Length goes to 12 in. or more, and weight to more than 1 lb., but the average is less. The largest bluegill I've caught weighed slightly more than 1 lb., and it was a grand fish.
The species has been introduced into California and other states, and in some cases has done very well, becoming abundant and of good size.
A smaller sunfish, the pumpkin seed, attains a length of about 8 in. and a weight of 6 to 8 oz. It is found in northern ponds and streams from the Great Lakes to Maine and in the northern portion of the Mississippi Valley.
This fish is most easily identified by the red spot it sports on each gill cover. Its color is greenish olive shading into blue; its sides are spotted with orange, and its orange cheek has wavy blue streaks. Forepart of the belly is usually bright orange.
I've never caught pumpkin seeds running more than 1/2 lb., but they hybridize with bluegills, and the resultant cross may run 1 lb.
Our third panfish, the green sunfish, runs about the same size as the pumpkin seed, averaging smaller in some sections. It is found west of the Allegheny Mountains, from the Great Lakes to Mexico, being quite abundant in ponds, streams, and creeks.
The green sunfish's overall color is rather dull, a sort of olive green flecked with yellow. It isn't as deep-bodied as the pumpkin seed, and its mouth is noticeably larger than that of any of the sunfish under discussion here. It is sometimes mistaken for a bluegill because it has a black spot at the rear of its dorsal fin.
The red-breasted bream or yellow-belly reaches about 1 lb. It is most abundant east of the Alleghenies and south of New Jersey. General color is olive green, lightening on the belly. Along the sides there may be red spots, bright to dull, on a bluish background. Lower part of the head is marked with bluish stripes against an olive background. Breast ranges from deep yellow to orange. The yellow belly's ear flap is long, narrow, and black; hence, it's sometimes erroneously called the long-eared sunfish.
The true long-eared sunfish also has a long ear flap, noticeably broad in contrast with that of the yellowbelly. General overall coloration is brilliant - a mixture of blue, green, orange, and yellow. There is a wide variation in the color pattern of these sunfish, among the most brightly colored of all freshwater species.
The long-ear is also one of the most abundant of our fish, ranging from Michigan and Minnesota to the Rio Grande in the West and South Carolina in the East. Length runs to 7 or 8 in., but the long-ear's body is chunky and its weight good compared with that of the yellowbelly.
All five of our sunfish follow the same spawning pattern; they nest in colonies in water from about 8 in. to 3 ft. deep. The males form the nests by fanning away sand and gravel; they pick up larger stones in their mouths and drop them outside the nest. If the bottom is muck, instead of sand or gravel, the males fan away the mud until underlying submerged sticks or weed roots are revealed. Generally the nests are round or oval, but have less symmetry on a rough bottom. The female's eggs are adhesive and will stick to gravel, wood, or to one another.
When the females are ripe they enter the nesting area and the males attract them to the nests. Having spawned, a female leaves the nest, but the male remains on guard, hovering over the eggs and farming them with his fins to keep them free of silt. During this period he will fearlessly attack predators much larger than he is. Hatching time is very short - a matter of days.
Sunfish live in both weedy and rocky waters. They seem to prefer the rocky shoals to deeper water, and- lie at the edges of weed clumps rather than directly in them. However, thick weed beds are a haven for immature fish; they slide easily among the tangled stems and fronds that discourage predators.
In water that is not entirely suitable, sunfish propagate and increase but never attain good size. I know some lakes, primarily trout waters, where the sunfish remain stunted. But they have taken over other lakes and put the trout in the background.
Worms are traditional bait for sunfish, and for me any worm fills the bill. It can be the ordinary garden variety or a night crawler. It can be an inchworm or a worm from cow or horse manure, if you can find any of the latter these days. Or it can be a nice, lively, whitish worm dug from the banks of a bog stream. It can be any worm or in the muck, so long as it can be properly impaled on a suitable hook. On the whole, I'm satisfied with night crawlers or earthworms, but there are times when other things seem more attractive.
I have also found minnows to be good bait. I've taken large bluegills with them while fishing for bass, and sometimes got green sunfish on small minnows. Occasionally - but not very often - I've taken pumpkin seeds or yellowbellies with minnows.
Sunfish have small mouths, so they have not been fitted by nature to be fish eaters. However, when hungry they'll attack a minnow. But they're more likely to kill, mangle, or steal your bait than get caught on the hook. (Of course, I'm excluding such members of the sunfish family as - the rock bass, crappie, and the king of them all - the black bass.)
I'd say that the sunfish we've been considering are feeders on insects and their larvae, small crustaceans, snails and their kin, and a certain amount of vegetable matter. I've found plenty of these things in their stomachs but have rarely discovered fish, and then only in large specimens or when anglers had been baiting with minnows.
Because of their feeding habits, the sunfish respond well to artificial flies, either wet or dry, and to bug-like or wormlike artificial baits as well. My favorite flies are few. For drys, I like the McGinty or any other "bee" pattern; a Black Gnat with a fat body of chenille or peacock herl; a Coachman or, occasionally, a Royal Coachman; a White Moth; and a Black Alder with peacock herl or black-chenille body and brown deer hair tied horizontally along the hook shank. I think sizes 8 and 10 are most useful, but I lean a lot to 12's when the water is calm.
I also like small bugs with cork or hair bodies in the general color range of the flies. A black body with a white-hair or hackle tail is sometimes excellent, as are also the Coachman, Brown, and bee patterns. Size 10 kinked shank hooks suit me here, but if the fish run larger, size 8 (or even 6) is sometimes better. You are also likely to pick up good bass on these larger ones.
I like wet-fly and nymph patterns in sizes 8, 10, and 12. My favorite patterns are the McGinty or other bee-like pattern with a bulky yellow-and-black body: a Black Gnat with heavy body; a Silver Doctor that's a cheap imitation of the salmon pattern, with some guinea fowl used; Alexandria-two patterns, one with white and one with scarlet hackle; and Brown Hackle with red-wool tag.
In fishing' dry flies, try a number of different tactics. Sometimes a sunny will be attracted to a fly or bug if you let the lure lie still on the water after you drop it there. I think that is always the best way to start. When it's lain there for some time give it a slight twitch. Pause and do it again, repeating as necessary.
Don't become impatient and lift the fly too quickly from the surface. Sometimes you'll get your strike when the lure is close to the boat. If slight twitches don't work, try snappier ones, but be gentle at the start. When you have found the retrieve that works best that day, stick with it as long as it continues to produce for you. Each day will be different then the last.
A 6-ft.-long leader is usually adequate but I like longer ones, especially if the water is clear. One that is 7 1/2 ft. long and tapered to 2X makes a good general length and weight. In sunfishing, the line should float; otherwise it will be difficult to make the surface twitches of the lure lifelike. And the floating line keeps the fly dry and riding well.
If you use wet flies, soak them before you start fishing so they'll go under as soon as they hit water. As the fly sinks watch line or leader; often a strike comes as the fly goes down and you'll notice it by a twitch on the line or leader. Then be quick on the trigger to set the hook.
Otherwise let the fly sink until it reaches bottom, then start it upward without a jerk so you'll avoid snagging a weed. As you do this, be prepared for a strike; a fish may have been watching the fly sink and get interested in it only when it "comes to life."
While there are a number of ways of fishing a retrieve I think the best is the "hand twist," which experienced fly fishermen have been using as long as I can remember. It's easy to learn but difficult to describe.
Let's try, anyway. At the start of the retrieve, take the line between the tips of thumb and forefinger (palm of hand up). Then swing the hand over clockwise until palm is down; that moves the line in several inches. With the hand in that position, take line between the fourth and little finger; then swing the hand counterclockwise until it is palm up. That moves the line several inches more. Keep repeating these two moves; the fingers will learn to perform them almost automatically. That way you'll bring the lure toward you in short, rhythmic jerks of 3 or 4 in. When the movement becomes natural you'll find that it is possible to regulate its speed nicely.
This retrieve is necessary if you're to get the best out of wet-fly fishing. Of course, you can give the fly a jerky retrieve simply by retrieving the line sharply. And that's the thing to do when circumstances call for sharp, fast jerks.
Other times you can interest the fish with rod action alone. That happens mostly when you're making short casts of 25 ft. or less. Retrieve by starting the rod low at the end of the cast; produce short jerks on the line as you raise the rod to vertical. When the rod is at about 10 or 11 o'clock (assuming you're facing 9 o'clock) you should be able to pick your fly or flies from the water without appreciable effort, preparatory to making the next cast.
At times in sun fishing, a fuzzy dry fly (such as a palmer or bivisible), thoroughly soaked and fished wet with decided jerks, is quite effective.
While almost any fly rod may be used in sunfishing, the lighter it is, the more fun you'll have. A 7 1/2 or 8-ft. dry-fly trout rod is fine, and will handle bass if you happen to tie into one.
