FS Digest

While I'm no stranger to fishing, I'm looking for advice for baits that work well for crappie, gills, and other various sunfish. I haven't fished exclusively for panfish in 3 decades. They took a back seat while I pursued salmon, steelhead, bass, pike, and walleye. When I was a kid, I'd just put a worm on a hook and wait until I had a bite. While I would definitely do that, I think it would be more fun throwing small jigs, spinners, spoons, and small soft plastics. What are some baits I should be looking at? What about hook sizes? I know some sunfish, like bluegill, have very small mouths.

I decided to get into panfish since I'd like to have my wife accompany me on some fishing trips. She's not one for hiking through the spinach to get to the hot steelhead holes, so we will be fishing a lot of marinas and easier to access lakes in my area. I've already got her a rod and reel, Okuma Ceymar C10 and an Okuma Celilo 7' UL spinning rod. For me, I'm going to use my Penn Fierce III 1000 and 7' light power Berkley Lightning Trout rod I use for fishing brookies and browns, should be a suitable panfish setup as well.

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by redmeansdistortion

FS Digest

I split a powerbait trick worm into tiny tiny pieces and put an on small jig heads the powerbait sent is fantastic for gills

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by sherbs89

FS Digest

You can buy crappie kits at Walmart that work well, usually just drop them down or use a bobber to control the height and slowly jerk/reel them in

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by FANTOMphoenix

FS Digest

https://troutmagnet.com/

These are one of my favorite panfish lures. I tend to use the slightly larger Trout Slayers the most often, they have a little thicker hook which helps when a larger bass grabs one.

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by 5uper5kunk

FS Digest

I use beetle spins or spoons when not floating or trolling a jig. And road runner rattling jig heads work well for me also. Bobber or no bobber. If I use a bobber I like to use a slip bobber so the bait will rise and fall as I twitch/jerk/reel it in

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by ceciltyler

FS Digest

Get 1 inch panfish assassin's, and maybe a 1/32 oz jighead, match if you can if not plain jigheads work. I also second the trout Slayer baits, the 1 inch craws on a jighead are successful.

Edit: worms to work.

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by FailronHubbard

FS Digest

Crappie bites with a tiny j hook and a bobber. Fun for all. Works well in Cali, can't comment on other places. Haven't thrown anything for panfish

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by pluckems

Spiritof27 Loc: Lincoln, CA

Used to be a preacher down in San Diego who fished for crappie with a spinning reel paired with a fly rod. He used a yellow mister twister grub and would bring home enough crappie to have a fish fry for his whole congregation. I remember reading an article about him in the Union.

saw1 Loc: nor cal Windsor

Hey Spirit, I use to trout fish that way. Back in the late 70's and 80's I had a Fenwick 8 1/2' fly rod with a little Garcia Mitchell spinning reel on it. Fished all the streams and rivers all around Tahoe all summer long with it. Was the only rig I used. Loved it. Sure caught a lot of fish with it. Still have the reel someplace. Have to look for it.

Robert J Samples Loc: Round Rock, Texas

I misread your question at first. I thought you were asking if panfish were good for bait! Yes, definitely, large Catfish love them. Growing up on the banks of Red River, I quickly learned that it took 2 hours of seining for minnows or perch to fish one hour for catfish, which can turn into a lot of work. Remember, or maybe you dont, during W.W. II there was absolutely no tackle to be had anywhere, it all went to the war effort.

To remedy our need for bait, my dad cut a deal with a gentleman living about 5 miles west of us who had a large natural lake of perhaps 20 to 30 acres. It was filled with willows, lilly pads, and perch! We would set and bait a trap and bring home buckets full of perch about the size of a man's hand. With these in the spring when Red River was flood stage, we would set throw lines of 5 hooks right along the bank edge and catch enough 5 to 10 lb. catfish to have fish fries for the entire community.

Pickle Loc: Duplin co, NC

Meal worms , maggots , crickets, red worms, all work great for panfish, if your going to target crappies minnows work for them. You can tip your jigs with the meal worms also.

Pickle Loc: Duplin co, NC

Meal worms , maggots , crickets, red worms, all work great for panfish, if your going to target crappies minnows work for them. You can tip your jigs with the meal worms also.

Spiritof27 Loc: Lincoln, CA

So RJS when you refer to perch are you talking about yellow perch or blue gills. Folks out here in California wouldn't know a perch if it bit em in the butt. They're catching bluegills and calling them perch. My dad was from Alabama and he called bluegills bream.

Robert J Samples Loc: Round Rock, Texas

Well, I am quite neglectful when it comes to the names of this family of fish; some even call them Pumpkin seed, blue gills, etc., Mostly we just called this species "perch" and treated them as bait. Now I believe that Crappie are in this same general family group and do get much larger. I know folks in Texas that will sink an old Christmas Tree in a likely spot to attract Crappie to a known location. They might even bait it with cotton seed cake, or similar cattle feed. I seldom fished for any of this family. Growing up, our river fishing was for catfish and in the spring when they made their spawning run, sand bass or white bass.

Spiritof27 Loc: Lincoln, CA

I grew up in northern Indiana and my granddad and I used to fish for the perch - yellow perch like in the 2nd picture. Mighty good eating. We would catch a lot of bluegills too, and the occasional sunfish, but not nearly as tasty as the perch. Now I live in California and there are no perch here, but there are bluegills and crappie. Folks out here call them perch. Kinda like a milkshake being called an egg cream. Hope I didn't start anything with that.