By Bob Bohland
Big fish live in big fish waters. Most seasoned anglers know this. While a fluke trophy can be caught out of almost any waters; the best way to catch big fish consistently remains to travel to big fish waters. For panfish anglers in Minnesota, you need to simply pick up a road map and follow the Panfish Corridor to find your best chance at trophy panfish. This belt across the state has some of the best growing conditions for panfish, and due to the types of lakes in this region; panfish often survive even the harshest of winters that would otherwise decimate a lake in the southern tier of the state, but can still withstand the fishing pressure they often see.
Why Here?
Some of you are probably thinking that the northern lakes in the state provide better fisheries for panfish than the middle tier of lakes. But the problem with the lakes in much of the northern parts of the state is their trophic classification. Trophic classification is determined by several variables, but the one most focus on is the total weight of biomass in the given body of water (think bugs as food for the fish). The lakes in the northern tier of the state are generally either oligotrophic or mesotrophic. This means that they have fewer nutrients to support fast growing populations of fish and in the instance of panfish, their populations of large fish can be quickly depleted by over harvest and may take long periods of time to recover. So while these northern lakes can often have amazing fisheries, any amount of pressure can quickly dampen the chance at quality fish.
The southern tier lakes in the state have the exact opposite problem. Many of these lakes are often in the eutrophic or hypereutrophic range. There is tons of food available for panfish to get big and get big quick. So while it may take only 4-6 years to grow a trophy bluegill or crappie in these lakes, they often will not live longer than that due to lack of oxygen in the lakes during harsh winters. Lakes in this area freeze out very regularly, so while an angler may find an amazing fishery for one or two years, it can just as easily die off during a long winter.
Lakes along the Pine to Prairie Corridor are right in the middle of the two extremes. Classified along the line of mesotrophic and eutrophic, they mostly have abundant food sources, and are big and deep enough to provide ample oxygen during a long winter to ensure the survival of a fishery. So these fish can grow fast and have the ability to live for a long time without the occurrence of winter kill. The majority of these lakes fall within a corridor of where the big north woods meets the prairies of southern Minnesota, essentially following Interstate 94. The best areas to target can be found by looking at the Minnesota DNR's ecological provinces map, as they all fall in the Eastern Broadleaf Forest section.
Narrow It Down
Now this doesn’t mean that all lakes in this region will pump out trophy bluegills and crappies by the bucket load. It may take some homework to narrow down the best waters in the area. While many smaller lakes in this region can kick out some very nice panfish, small lakes are susceptible to over harvest just as much as the big northern lakes. Your major focus should be on lakes that are at least 250 acres in size and are known to produce quality fish, as it won’t do any good to go fish a lake that doesn’t even have a panfish population. Bigger lakes also have the added benefit of offering areas that hold fish that have often been overlooked by the masses. Although that isn’t to say that you won’t find a tiny little hidden gem from time to time, but they are more the exception than the rule, as this strip of lakes also has a large amount of human population in the area.
A good lake map is your best friend when it comes time to find these plethoras of panfish and if the map shows bottom composition, it’s even better. These fish get big fast because of the amount of aquatic invertebrates in the water. They will consume these insects in mass amounts while packing on the pounds. Many anglers don’t understand how to incorporate lake maps with the type of insects the fish are keying on. For instance, if the fish in the lake you are fishing generally eat daphnia or freshwater shrimp, shallow to mid-depth flats with green weeds are the best spots to key on. Pelican Lake in Albertville, Mn is a good example of this type of lake. It is a shallow bowl that seems to pump out ridiculous numbers of big panfish every year due in large part to the overwhelming numbers of freshwater shrimp and other invertebrates in the lake. By keying in on green weeds on this lake you can find the bigger fish as they chase these insects and other prey around.
In deeper lakes with thick mud bottoms often times the fish will tend to key on insects that spend more time in deeper water such as mayfly larvae and bloodworms. Areas to concentrate on in these lakes include mud to sand/rock transition areas and any area that you can find with the stickiest bottom possible. On your Marcum, these areas will show up as a very thin band that indicates limited sonar read back. You can test the stickiness of the bottom further by putting a depth bomb on your hook and sending it down. The harder it is to pull the weight out of the bottom, the better the fishing will often be. One great example of this is Lake Osakis in Douglas County, the panfish tend to sit on sticky bottom areas gorging themselves on invertebrates, often even going down into the substrate to fan the bugs up off the bottom.
The Payoff
Many lakes in this corridor will have both shallow and deep water species of insects, so by meticulously going through a good lake map you can pick and choose how you want to target the fish. For fish in shallow water, anything less than 15-20 feet, baits that can get down into the weeds quickly and stir things up work really well. For fishing shallow lakes for panfish such as Pelican, I like to go with the Lindy Toad. It fishes heavy, like a bait 3 times it's size, and has the weight needed to punch through any aquatic vegetation. This extra weight is really helpful on lakes that receive a lot of pressure as the fish can often be reluctant to come up out of the weeds to eat when there are plenty of bugs available near the bottom.
Color selection is a variable many anglers simply don’t pay enough attention to, especially in shallow water, it can make all the difference in the world. Even in dark or stained waters, fish can see variations in colors a lot better than anglers give them credit for. In stained waters, such as those found on Pelican Lake, I prefer dark colors. The Viking and Coach Dog colors available on the Toad are great for this application, as they stand out far more than lighter or bright colors in muddy water.
When fishing for panfish in deeper lakes such as Osakis, the best areas to key in on are those with a “sticky bottom”. This so called sticky bottom generally provides the best breeding grounds for aquatic insects, and where there is food, the fish are sure to follow. While many anglers prefer to deadstick with waxworms or minnows in these areas, to really trigger the bigger, more aggressive fish, I prefer to dance a bait around above the fish. This is when I tie on the new Lindy Bug. With bulging eyes and a wide body, the Bug will glide out and around and quiver in place when pounded, and with eyes facing downward the fish can actually see the bait as it imitates the larvae of aquatic insects. By watching your flasher, you can see if the fish want the bait presented on the bottom or higher in the water column. If the fish prefer to eat something closer to the bottom, the new smaller sizes in the Slick Jig are my go to. Loaded with waxworms and pounded into the bottom, the Slick Jig looks exactly like a struggling insect hatching off of the bottom and can be very hard for a fish to resist.
If your goal this winter is to catch some giant panfish, either for the wall, or just to make your buddies jealous, grab yourself a map and follow it to Minnesota's Panfish Belt. These lakes have no problem producing big panfish through the years, and you may discover a few new hotspots that you simply had no clue about.
By Bob Bohland
Bluegills are not shy this time of year, so going as fast as 2 mph isn't out of the question.
Bluegills by their very nature are both curious and vicious. They are comparable to piranhas in the way they will seemingly attack and chase everything that moves, regardless of size. How many times have you had a small pack of bluegills attacking your big bass or muskie bait boatside just because it had a little extra flash to it? Many assume that this is just something little bluegills do out of curiosity, but the big bulls will do it as well, they are just a little more selective about what they attack.
Enter the Lindy Rig, a perennial favorite for targeting walleyes and saugers everywhere from the sand and mud flats of Mille Lacs to the open spaces of Lake of the Woods, but few have ever thought to use it for catching bull bluegills. Yet it is the perfect lure for finding big bluegills in the summer and fall when they become nomads. The reason a Lindy Rig works so well is the multitude of ways in which it can be fished. Speed is only a factor as long as you can keep the blade spinning, and depth is no factor as it can be fished up at the surface to as deep as you are willing to send it.
Lindy Rigs don't necessarily have to pulled behind a bottom bouncing/walking sinker. One of my favorite way to fish them for bluegills is to put a small split shot one to two feet above the spinner with a twister tail on the hook and cast it along weed edges. You can skip the weight if you want to fish the inside edge of the weeds, or add a small rubber core sinker if you want to fish a really deep weed edge. The great thing about casting a Lindy Rig into the weeds is that the spinning of the blade will make the rig semi-weedless. If you are getting bites that aren't holding on, swap out the twister tail for a leech, small worm, or even a minnow, but generally, staying with plastics will deter the smaller bluegills in an area from attacking.
When the water warms above that 75 degree mark, the big bluegills often separate themselves from the rest and go deep to off-shore structure. This is when it becomes time to fish a Lindy Rig like you would for walleyes. Depending on the body of water you are on, the bluegills could be sitting on mud flats or they could be near sunken islands, or rock bars. The fish often will not want to travel too far to get to their summer and fall haunts, so look towards structure that resides near where you found them while spawning. Speed is good for locating a pod of active bluegills. When you have a lot of water, it helps to go through it quickly. Bluegills are not shy this time of year, so going as fast as 2 mph isn't out of the question. When you find a pod of fish, mark them on your GPS and refine your tactic by going back and forth through the school at different angles. This will help you determine the size and location of the school with each pass/fish caught. It also helps to change out colors during each pass until you find that one magic color that will slay them. With the quick change clevis on Lindy's new spinner, it is very easy to just snap a new color or size on, and since there are 12 different color combinations you can match the forage type on any body of water.
When the late-summer and fall panfish doldrums come to call, take a page out of a walleye angler's playbook and put a blade on your line. You will be able to target for the biggest bluegills in your lake at almost any depth you desire, and who knows, you may even get a bonus roughfish such as a walleye.
By Bob Bohland
The majority of anglers consider crappies to be a schooling species, where you find one; you will find a bunch more. While this is generally true for the majority of crappies, often many of the biggest fish in a body of water will strike it out on their own. These large slabs no longer need the protection the school offers and they don’t want to waste energy chasing after small prey and competing with small to medium sized crappies.
As crappies begin to reach slab size, which in Minnesota is 12” and up, they begin to seek different food sources than the smaller crappies. They more actively seek larger prey such as young of the year bluegills, perch, and shiners, and one of the most efficient ways of doing this by ambushing prey along weed edges. Larger crappies will sit in areas along weed edges, much like bass, and dart out and pick off small fish species, even eating smaller crappies, bass, bluegills, etc. If it is small enough to fit in their mouths, they will eat it.
While snorkeling in lakes that I fish regularly, I have begun to put together some observations about how these slab crappies behave. One interesting thing I have seen is that if a crappie is caught out of one of these locations, it isn’t long before another takes up residence in the same location, which leads me to believe that these ambush points are sought after and the crappies may even become territorial over good hunting grounds, similar to the way large muskies and bass stake out their territory. Some things all these locations offer is the ability to hide (weeds, trees, etc), adjacency to deep water (deep being relative to the body of water), and large amounts of small zooplankton, which in turn attracts small sunfish, perch, etc.
If you truly want to target slab crappies during the summer, forget about going and sitting over a numbers spot like all the pontoons you see anchored up in the evening. Target them much in the same way you would fish a lake for bass. Start by fishing along outside weed edges with baits that seem almost a touch too large for crappies. A large fathead minnow or even a medium sized shiner works great for targetting big crappies. One of my go-to jigs for this presentation is the new Lindy Jig by Lindy Fishing Tackle. Available in 20 different colors, there is a color for every variation of water clarity or light penetration you may encounter, and the 3D eyes give a profile that no crappie can resist. My two personal favorites are the black and chartreuse green for clear waters and the pink and chartreuse yellow for stained waters. Put your bowmount down in the water and move along these weed edges slowly jigging your bait. When you get a hit from one of these big slabs make sure and hit the waypoint button on your gps, as a new fish will often move in within the matter of a few days. Fish this pattern long enough and you will have quite a few waypoints loaded up for each lake you fish.
Another great search bait that is just hitting the midwest is the Lindy Dancin Crappie Series. This series of jigs, designed by Bill Dance himself, has every color combination possible for crappies, and even a few you may have never heard of. With different types of pre-rigged baits such as the Dancin’ Tube, the Dancin’ Jig, and the Dancin Crappie Spin Jig, there is sure to be one to match your style of fishing. If you wanna work a weedline fast on a large lake go for the Spin Jig first, the flashy blade on this bait will draw strikes from even the most unwilling crappies, and will draw crappies out of their hiding spaces.
If the lake you are fishing is really clear, it can often be hard to target these fish during the bright sunny days. In these instances, I will use the 1/16th oz Splash-Brite bobber. You can fish them the same way you would during the day with this setup, but I often add a crappie or fathead minnow to the setup to get some extra commotion in the water for the fish to hone in on. With the added weight of the light and battery in the Splash-Brite you can make pinpoint casts and the range of your casts is greatly increased.
One considerable advantage to fishing this presentation is that crappies are not the only species that will “move out” of the schools, often bull bluegills and jumbo perch can be found in these little honey-holes. These methods will land you some of the biggest panfish on any given lake, and by keeping good records and tracking your waypoints on a gps you will have a plethora of big crappie micro-structure spots to target when you want to impress your buddies the next time out on the water.
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