Light bite panfish tip

This worked for me yesterday and a few times in the past so I thought I would share it.

I was fishing with my Marcum 500 on Chisago Lake yesterday.

I started with a larger crappie tear drop, then notice on the camera when I thought a gill had sucked it in…they really hadn’t. The were just grabbing the wax worm and the hook never entered their mouth. So I switched to a very small bluegill tear drop. Same thing. Those fish would actually shake there heads to tear off the worm form the hook.

So, the problem was that the hook was too heavy/big to be sucked in with the worm. I might add here that I was holding onto the 2 lb test line with my fingers. I occasionally I could feel a nibble as they were doing this but the norm was if I didn’t have a camera down there, I would never have know there was a fish there. You know how you see a fish on you flasher at the bait…but he just doesn’ t bite? They are, you just can’t tell without a camera.

I had some size 18 dry fly hooks along from my fly tying days and some .50 Orvis tippit material. Two pound test won’t fit into the eye of a size 18 hook. I made about a one foot leader and used a blood know to attach the leader to the 2 pound line. Put a waxie on the hook and with the same splitshot I used ealier…down she went. My sinker made it down first and then the hook and waxie drifted down a couple seconds later.

From this point on, if I was watching the camera when the worm vanished into the gills mouth I had a gill on ice. Worked everytime.
There were still some fish, which included a two pound northern that just looked and backed away. But the bottom line was I sorted out 8 keeper gills in 15 minutes compared to being frustrated on not being able to hook a fish.

Might want to give this a try if you know there’s fish there but they don’t seem to be biting.

Brian!!!!!! SHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!! Way to let the cat out of the bag.

In all seriousness, I have been using my box of nymphs (size 14-20) all winter with great sucess, doing just about what you’re suggesting….tipping with a waxie and waiting for the bite. A bead head nymph or one with a few wraps of lead wire will fall nice and slow, and it’s a presentation that many finicky pannies haven’t seen very often (versus a heavy (in relative terms) teardrop). Plus, the nymph just plain looks “buggy” versus something that is hard and metallic, hence the nymph will get rejected less often by a wary fish. If guys don’t have a spool of tippet handy, they can get by (if using a larger nymph) with some 1 lb test ice line.

With the light tippet and the light fly/hook…they can’t help but inhale the hook!

About 15 or so years ago, I had a friend that asked me to make some size 22 bugs for him. Just some rabbit hair tyed on a hook. He died before he got a chance to use them, so I’ve kept this in the back of my mind for a long time…just got to using it the last couple years.

Ever try threading a size 22 hook in the winter?

For all you non fly fishing friends ..the hook is about the size of this two 2!

Thanks for the tip, will try this technique. How bigs the cat in your avatar?

i once got a limit of gills just by thredin a waxie on a small hook and just letin it slowly fall to the bottom in about 3 fow

FTA, that was a little 13lbser…if I recall. I’d have to double check, but it was the camera angle that made it look much larger than it was.

Welcome Mr. pdcjohnson! A new member from PDC!

Were you at our Get ToGether last weekend by any chance?

Oh he was there…didn’t even bring a pole…just wanted to scope us all out….

Were you the fella that works with Dave?

…and there were pleanty of poles to use. I had two along that didn’t see the south end of a wax worm.