Pan Fish In The Pan
Where's supper? Pan fish are always looking for their next meal. A quick jig and they've provided you with supper instead!
By Valeska Misserij
Posted Tuesday, July 5, 2005
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Where's supper? Pan fish are always looking for their next meal. A quick jig and they've provided you with supper instead! But in most parts of the United States pan fishing is just for sport. Even if you simply catch and release without the kill, if you love to fish, pan fishing is great fun. While the smaller and younger pan fish may be easy prey, the larger and cagey pan fish are worthy opponents and certainly are more difficult to catch.
Young pan fish aren't particular about what they eat, they simply want to eat. These fish will nibble at a wad of bread put on a hook and dangled in the water. With level of skill required, small fish and small children go well together. It's a great delight to teach a small child how to fish for young pan fish. These fish aren't "keepers" but youngsters are thrilled to catch them just for the fun of it.
The scope of pan fish is pretty wide. These fish pretty much fall into the category of whatever lake fish fits into your frying pan. The more common pan fish include crappie, sunfish, bluegill and perch. Depending on the season you fish in and the lake conditions, pan fish bait and lures change.
If it's summer, adult pan fish will prefer bait such as night crawlers, worms, leeches and grubs. Sometimes the best bait is large or small minnows. But if you are fishing at night, night flies or grubs may be just what you need to entice perch.
If for some reason you prefer not to use live bait, lures can mimic bait and look just about the same to pan fish. In the summer, the best time of day to catch pan fish is either early in the morning just before dawn or in the evening just before dusk. You need to know where to look for fish as well as know the best time of day. Pan fish like lake perch like to move every day from the shallow water near shore during the day to the deeper water at night in order to feed. Since they've moved to deeper water to feed, that's the place to find them and putting your lure or bait in the water has the best chance of success.
Other kinds of pan fish have different patterns from lake perch. Other pan fish prefer to hide out in the shade, in the weeds and at the edge of the lake. The larger sunfish and crappies prefer these areas where there's a better food supply that suits their palate. Since they are fussier in what they'll eat, they are harder to catch. While younger fish eagerly nibble at bait near the surface, more mature fish need lures that are slightly suspended off the bottom of the lake. Just be careful to select lures that won't tangle in the weeds; once these bigger fish figure out that your lure is, well, a lure and not a meal, they aren't
likely to take the bait, as the saying goes.
If you wish to learn more about lures for catching pan fish, check out the products available from Bass Pro Shop. Bass Pro Shop offers complete packages with a variety of jigs and lures. Also check out the lures made by Barlow Tackle.
Valeska Misserij is the webmaster and operator for Fishing M Guide, which is a premier resource for fishing information on the Internet.
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