I was float tube fishing on a local lake with a friend, hopscotching docks and other fish-holding cover, having a good time, both of us taking bass to four pounds on top-water bugs. But the excitement rose to another level when I hooked and was fortunate enough to land a two-and-a-half-pound bluegill. My megagill lived under a dock that was being repaired. Some of the decking had been removed, and a lucky cast got my bug into normally inaccessible cover. In 12 years of fishing that lake, I had caught only one other panfish of that size. For a while, until I could get it close enough for a good look, I had no idea what I’d hooked. It fought like a much larger fish, one at least twice its size. It was twisting and turning, using its flat profile in a determined battle. It’s funny how a single fish can make a day.
Like many dyed-in-the-wool, lifetime f ly-rod anglers, I got my start on panfish . . . bluegills, crappies, and sunfish. In my youth, when I spent summers on an uncle’s ranch in West Texas, we had three ponds in our mesquite-laced pasture and would drive west of town to a large reservoir for bigger game. The ponds, called “tanks” in Texas, provided sunfish, bluegills, and catfish and bathing water in the frequent droughts, but it was memories of the trips to Hoards Creek Reservoir for the crappie fishing that were resurrected by my immense bluegill. In those days, there was no lakeside development at the reservoir, only several covered boathouses, and we had access to them for fishing. Fly rods were unheard of. We tossed our round cane poles into the bed of a ’46 Ford pickup, along with an ice chest and fillet knives. We stopped in town for Dr. Peppers and ice and once again at a gas station bait shop for dozens of minnows. My Aunt Mable brought another essential: bags of leftover bread, biscuits, and cracker crumbs.
Uncle Leon and Mable had their drill down pat. We accessed an empty boathouse with a treasured key and untwisted our cane poles with their twill line and bright red and white sliding bobbers. Mable tossed handfuls of breadcrumbs onto the darkened waters of the boat slip. My uncle said, “It’ll take a few minutes for the minnows to find the cracker crumbs. The crappies won’t be far behind.” Leon showed me how to get a minnow from the bait can and thread my hook just under the dorsal fin. The bobber was set about four feet above a single size 6 hook.
It took me a while to pick up on the nuances of a crappie taking a minnow, but I had good instructors, and I couldn’t get enough of it, then or now. It’s difficult for a Californian to imagine what it is like to catch school crappies of two to two and a half pounds, one after another. But try to imagine what a panfish of that size can do to a 3-weight, 4-weight, or 5-weight fly rod.
Since we didn’t have electricity on the ranch at that time, which meant no freezer, we took only enough for a fish fry. Leon backed our pickup to the water’s edge, and we filleted the fish and packed them in ice. The scraps were recycled by the lake’s catfish, crawdads, and raccoons. We invited the neighbors on both sides of our ranch to the fish fry, of course.
A year later, our county was invaded by hordes of humongous, tobacco-spitting, crop-eating green grasshoppers. The hoppers defeated day-long efforts at stopping them with diesel fuel and gang plows, but in a glass-half-full, rather than half-empty spirit, my uncle said, “Get some buckets. The Devil’s hoppers may have beaten us, but at least we can have a fish fry.” Leon knew that those crappies at Hoards Creek loved grasshoppers even better than minnows.
Introduced Species
Among the panfish species, the only one native to the West is the Sacramento perch, which is rare in California, though still found in some Nevada impoundments and lakes. Pyramid Lake and the bleak, wind-swept Lahontan Reservoir have populations of sizeable perch. All the others are introduced species.
Most panfish are members of the Centrarchidae family, which in California includes green sunfish, bluegills, pumpkinseeds, warmouths, redear sunfish, the black basses — redeye bass, smallmouth bass, northern spotted bass, Alabama spotted bass, northern largemouth bass, and Florida largemouth bass — as well as white crappies and black crappies. We can also include the family Percidae, whose members include yellow perch (think Copco and Iron Gate Reservoirs on the Klamath), bigscale logperch, and the native, but nearly extinct Sacramento perch.
We should also note the Percichthyidae family, which includes white bass and striped bass. White bass are found in Lake Nacimiento in the Central Coast Range, in some canals, and in a few other lakes. White bass and threadfin shad were introduced into Lake Nacimiento in 1965 and then into Kaweah Lake as attempts to provide good sport and forage for bass in reservoirs as part of a food chain — plankton, to threadfin shad, to sport fish. A flood sent these fish to the Tulare Lake Basin, where they were thought to be a potential threat to anadromous Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta fish populations, and following some political turmoil, the fish were eventually eradicated. They remain in Nacimiento and are occasionally found in the Salinas River, which drains from Nacimiento directly into the Pacific without a Delta connection.
William A. Dill and Almo J. Cordone, in their History and Status of Introduced Fishes in California, 1871–1996, show that all these fishes, with the exception of our Sacramento perch, were transported to California from their native waters in the South, East, and Midwest. Primary introduction points were the Feather River near Gridley and Lake Cuyamaca in Southern California around 1891. As with the introduction of largemouth and smallmouth bass, which I discussed in a previous issue, records were often inaccurate and species were commingled, both intentionally and accidently, green sunfish and bluegills and black and white crappies being classic examples. Dill and Cordone’s exhaustive research shows how indiscriminate the stocking was of nonnatives that now dominate our fisheries and how widespread they have become.
Contemporary biological thought frowns on nonnative species and on the indiscriminate stocking that occurred in the past. Regardless, we are left with many species that provide good sport on a fly rod in many watery habits across the state for young and old anglers alike. These fish answer our prayers when we are getting youngsters started in fishing of any type, whether with fly-rod, spinning rod, or cane pole and a bobber. Panfish also provide models for tying flies that attract larger predatory sport fish. I’ve hooked bluegills, sunfish, crappies, and small bass on fly-rod bugs, only to have them taken by larger fish, including bass and stripers.
Panfish on a Fly Rod
So how and where do we catch these fish on a fly rod? Fortunately, these species are not particularly selective, though crappies can be picky when taking live bait and even more so with artificials. Like the basses, the larger panfish are going to be found occupying the better habitat. A number of angling friends are very secretive regarding where to find those hand-size and larger bluegills and sunfish, which will attack imitations ranging from Woolly Buggers to smaller bass crankbaits.
It’s when panfish move inshore from deep water in the spring to spawn that they’re most accessible to fly-rod anglers. That is when they are particularly vulnerable to flies of all colors, shapes, and actions. Crappies are the first fish to make the move. Next come the bass, then the bluegills and the sunfishes, which prefer warmer water for spawning,
Bluegills spawn between May and August in water that ranges from 65 to 80 degrees, but they prefer water of 70 to 75 degrees. Crappies have a narrower preference band of 50 to 56 degrees. The crappies first stage inshore in prespawn mode, and it is the prespawn feeding frenzy that produces newspaper reports that “the crappies are on.” Strong spring winds often seem to coincide with the arrival of the desired water temperatures. When they do, fish areas that are more protected from the wind — docks, marinas, and protected water.
Crappies are school fish. Bluegills tend to school, as well, but also can spread out more, utilizing shoreline structure and cover. The really large ones of both species tend to be more solitary.
Crappies like sunken timber and brush, rock piles, and deeper-water dock pilings and will roam in large schools in open water looking for forage fish. Baitfish will hold them in one place, but if the bait isn’t there, they move. Find the threadfin shad or the pond smelt in foothill lakes, and you will find the crappies.
My friends and I fish several Central California foothill farm and ranch reservoirs that are from 20 to 35 acres. Most aren’t overly deep, and we find the crappies right in the middle, often over an old creek channel and down 6 to 12 feet, depending on water temperature and time of the year. I also work the lake edges for the bluegills, because bluegills and the other sunfishes prefer cover and hang around shoreline structure, although they often move into close-by open water in the morning and evening.
More fertile lakes, and ones in ecological balance, produce larger fish. I try to scale my fly size to fish size, sometimes using poppers as small as size 10, but I find that larger fish swallow the bug, making a nontraumatic release difficult because of the small mouth opening on these fish. Hemostats are a must, but going up at least one popper size helps cull the smaller fish, because they don’t hook on the set as well.
Perhaps the best fly of all for sunfish is a black or gray André Puyans (AP) Mayfly Nymph tied on a size 12, 10, or 8 hook. Similar effective patterns include the black Martinez and black stonefly nymphs. I always take my Woolly Bugger boxes on any panfish excursion. I prefer smaller hook sizes. Black, olive, and olive/gold Krystal Chenille combinations seem to be the winning colors. Crappies love minnows, and white or flashy silver versions work best. Don’t forget small white or silver fly-rod jigs. More than with the sunfishes, you may have to play with patterns to find one that they will take. Sometimes in open water on smaller ponds, when many fish are rising, the fish can be very selective. When that happens, don’t forget the midge.
If you are a bonefish angler, your Gotchas, Crazy Charlies, and shrimplike patterns will work very well on crappies and sunfish. Another pattern source is shad flies. The original Van Luven pattern in red and white works for crappies, as do the Bowstring shad fly patterns. Before I started saltwater fly fishing, I tied Nacimiento Shad Flies in silver braid and black, silver and red, and silver and olive with marabou tails. They were particularly effective for crappies, but also took the occasional bass, as well.
For a change of pace, I add an 18-inch dropper to the bend of my Woolly Bugger’s hook shank and tie on one of Phil Ryan’s small shad patterns, size 10, or another small, minnowlike streamer. And several years ago at Clear Lake, I discovered that crappies will eagerly take Gummy Minnows. Fishing a Gummy Minnow or other small minnow pattern below an indicator also works, and another trick is to fish a popper/dropper combination — a small shad pattern under a popper will take selective crappies. In late spring, you can also get a “fry” bite by crappies after the bass spawn.
California Dreamin’
Panfish are a blessing for any fisherman. We find them in many waters, whether large or very small, and they can be easy to catch on a fly rod. Prime time for fly rod panfish angling is the spring, and as winter closes in, my angling dreams feed off memories of vernal days spent in the returning sunshine, casting to these feisty fish.
One of my favorite lakes was Luk Lake near Corning before somebody thought stripers would draw pay-to-play anglers. The stripers wiped out a wonderful bluegill and bass fishery. The Fly Shop now plants winter trout in this 60-acre lake. But in the spring, bluegills used to be found in shoreline weed indentations. An olive/gold Woolly Bugger on an intermediate line gave an angler shots at dozens of hand-size and bigger fish. Even more fun was fishing size 6 chartreuse Sneaky Pete poppers on a floating line into lily pad openings. I always used at least 8-pound tippet, because I had to slide the fish over the lily pads to make a release. The fish hit poppers with an audible “crack” and a highly visible explosion. You could fish from shore or out of a tube or pram. You just waited till you saw or heard a rise, then cast to the opening and let the bug sit, twitching it a bit after a while. The blowup would come shortly thereafter or on the second or third series of twitches. And of course, there was always a possibility that the blowup would come from a larger bass. In the spring, this action could last throughout the day. Now I fish Bullards Bar around Easter, when there is runoff pouring into the lake from small and seasonal tributary streams. Our targets are coves where water is spilling down the hillsides and bringing food. It is a beautiful time of the year with verdant grass and new growth on the trees, and the fishing can be red hot. So this winter, when you think of spring, add panfish to your daydreams — and then to your plans for the coming year.
