It takes some fantastic panfishing to keep my interest over walleyes, especially when the latter species have been on the chew so well throughout the upper midwest. It seems like this time of year, you simply can’t be in enough places at once, and when an opportunity to fish comes along you had better jump at the chance no matter what the target species is. So it was when fellow IDO member Pat Howard (gutone4me) mentioned casually that he had some great panfish likes to "try", as if we were just going out there to "see what we could do." After spending some time turkey hunting and doing some fishing with Pat, I knew better and read between the lines. I was off to WI for a short stint, in the hopes of catching crappies in the afternoon, staying over, then catching bluegills in the afternoon.
According to Pat, the crappie lake was like many in the area, where better fishing often involves going places and doing things that most people won’t. Which is just my style. I’d much rather have to work a bit, then have the bite to yourself, instead of launch at a big public access and fight crowds continually. After some portages and dragging of his 10 foot, trolling-motor-powered jon-boat, we finally arrived at our destination lake. We were a bit early in the afternoon, and spent our time both scouting and continuously catching the sunfish along one particular shoreline. They ran a bit small, so we continued our way to a weedy, irregular shoreline with pockets, inside turns, and points galore. The fish were there alright, moving out of the weeds where they spent most of their day to hunt like packs of roaming wolves along the weedlines. Ferocious they were, with us being bit several times in the same retrieve; that is, if we didn’t set the hook first. The following hour and a half was some of the fastest crappie fishing I’ve ever experienced, with so many doubles and back to back fish, we were surprised they’d keep biting from the same areas. The fish weren’t giants, but were cookie-cutter 10-11" fish, each one looking nearly exactly the same. Baits of choice were primarily jighead/curly-tail-grub combinations with safety-pin style spinners, slow-rolled.
After portaging our way back, dragging the boat, getting a bite to eat, and cleaning a few fish late the previous night, we had an early wake-up call when the alarm went-off at 4AM. A short drive brought us to yet another lake with scattered timber everywhere. Like the lake from the day prior, Pat had fished these areas for years, with a good idea of at least a starting point or two for some fish. With smaller bass in the shallows, we had a good time with them making our way back to the bluegill locations. When we arrived, I saw Pat readying himself to fish for gills, forgetting to put a split-shot on his bobber rig. Or so I thought.
It didn’t take Pat, or his father who was also fishing with us, long to hook into some absolutely monster gills. Pat’s first one came on a senko/bass-hook believe it or not, and went almost 10.5". After fan casting jig/plastic combinations, jig/spinners, and finally standard slip-bobber/sinker/hook-worm setups to no avail, I begrudgingly broke down and joined the crowd. He didn’t have a name for it, and didn’t think much of it, but from my lack of initial success, along with a lack of success for the few other boats in the area, it was obvious they were onto something. "Dead-bobber," "lazy-bobber," whatever you want to call it, this slow and free-falling plain-hook/worm combination, using the bobber as a casting aid as much as a strike indicator was truly the ticket. These fish were not at a fixed depth, and they were shallow, feeding aggressively on the surface at dragonflies and damselflies. Setting a traditional pencil bobber with a hook at a fixed depth or even several depths kept the bait both below the fish, and moving too fast for their liking. The incredibly slow sink-rate, paired with the lay-down bobber that tipped up when a fish was on, brought well over 100 bluegills to the boat, with nearly 75% of them being over 9"es. 9.5"’s were common with a handful of fish in the 10"+ category. Trophy bluegills by anyone’s standards, and harder fighting than the small bass we were also catching.
Thanks Pat for teaching me a few tricks, and for sharing the great bite with me. I had a great time, looking forward to fishing with you again!
Joel