Panfish Bite Warming Up

[Beernut]

The panfish bite is heating up. The fish are moving into the shallows and taking flies off the top. Water is still too cold for them to move onto beds. I switch to panfish and smallmouth once the reguler trout season opens. :-D

 

[Dave_W]

Yep - good news. Thanks for the reminder.

The best time to target panfish in lakes and ponds is the next 4-6 weeks as big ones will be aggressive and close to shore.

 

[jifigz]

I love fishing for panfish. I could use a fishing morale boost too as I've been on a tough stretch here for the last two weeks. I haven't been catching anything hardly.

 

[afishinado]

jifigz wrote:
I love fishing for panfish. I could use a fishing morale boost too as I've been on a tough stretch here for the last two weeks. I haven't been catching anything hardly.

I always look forward to catching panfish in my local lake. The water temps are still in the low 40's here, so the really good fishing is a ways off yet. Overnight air temps have been below or close to freezing still; we need a sustained warm-up to get things moving. Soon I hope.

 

[jifigz]

afishinado wrote:

jifigz wrote:
I love fishing for panfish. I could use a fishing morale boost too as I've been on a tough stretch here for the last two weeks. I haven't been catching anything hardly.

I always look forward to catching panfish in my local lake. The water temps are still in the low 40's here, so the really good fishing is a ways off yet. Overnight air temps have been below or close to freezing still; we need a sustained warm-up to get things moving. Soon I hope.

No doubt about it. This nice warm weekend should help a lot. Let's just hope the weather stays in the 60's for a while during the day. My favorite panfish action happens in late May and Early June when the redbreasts and rock bass move into their usual spawning grounds around islands whatnot here in the Juniata. I enjoy making it to lakes but the closest one is still like a 35-40 minute drive.

 

[tomgamber]

Foam spider time!

 

[JerryC]

I got out for a couple of hours last Saturday when it got into the 80's. Fished a stocked section of Chester Creek, near Glen Mills. Picked up nice crappie, about 10 inches long on a furled chenille worm and a rainbow on a mop fly. I could feel the sunfish pecking at the chenille fly but not really grabbing it. The crappie felt really cold in my hand when i was unhooking it. I'm heading up to a lake in the Poconos on May 19th for a week of fishing with some non-fly fishing friends, looking forward to it. Last year I smoked them with the fly rod.

 

[REDNECK_FLYFISHER]

I just love fly fishing for panfish. I probably enjoy it more than trout fishing. Give me my fly rod and some black ants for top and hares ear for nymphs and off I go.