Ep 42: Fly Fishing for Panfish, with Bart Lombardo
Bart Lombardo is a panfish fanatic and loves chasing them with a fly rod. Although he considers himself a fan of all fish species, bluegills, crappies, perch, and other panfish are his forte. He is the creator of Panfish on the Fly, a website and Facebook group where thousands of people come together to share their love of these fish. In this episode, we cover a wide range of topics, including which species are considered panfish, where they’re found, seasonal changes in their behavior, fly selection, catching big ones, the differences between species, and gear.
Website: www.panfishonthefly.com
Email: info@panfishonthefly.com
Facebook: Panfish On The Fly & The Panfish On The Fly Group (10k members)
Instagram: @panfish_on_the_fly
Twitter: @panfishonthefly
Pinterest: @PanfishOnTheFly
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Katie
You're listening to the Fish Untamed podcast, your home for fly fishing the backcountry. Alright, welcome to episode number 42 of the Fish Untamed podcast. Today was a super fun chat with Bart Lombardo of Panfish on the Fly, which many of you are probably familiar with if you're like me and love getting after those bluegills, crappies, other warm water species during the summer. But Bart just has an absolute passion for these fish, as you'll hear in our conversation. This episode covers everything from the different types of panfish to gear, fly selection, different seasons, basically everything you might want to know if you're chasing these fish. So we can hop right over to it. Here is my chat with Bart Lombardo. Well, why don't we just start with a little introduction. Maybe tell me how you got into fly fishing and then specifically your passion for panfish.
Bart
Okay. Yeah, sounds good. I've been fly fishing now for, God, I think it's definitely over 40 years, maybe creeping up on 45. I probably first picked up a fly rod when I was about 12 years old. And of course, the very first fish that I ever hooked on a fly rod was undoubtedly a sunfish of some sort, most likely a bluegill. And the very first fish I ever caught, I know for a fact, was a bluegill when I was maybe three, four years old. And that was on a bobber and a worm, the way everybody else starts. But I really got turned on to the fly fishing when I was in my late teens, early 20s. And once I started with the fly rod, I pretty much stayed in that direction. And, you know, fishing it almost exclusively for, you know, 25, 30 years. And just recently in the last maybe five years or so, you know, have I ever even picked up a spinning rod or a bait casting rod. But there was a lot of years that all I fished with was a fly rod. So definitely been seriously fly fishing since I was 17 or 18 years old, and I'm just turned 57, so that's a lot of years.
Katie
And so what got you into it? Was it your dad or another family member that got you into it?
Bart
Not really. I mean, I came-- I kind of grew up in a city environment, but I did have a grandfather that had the cabin in the woods, and that's where I spent a good portion of my summers every year. And that is what really fostered my interest in the outdoors, in just the outdoors in general and hunting and fishing. And I've always been a fishing nut, even since I was a little kid. And so the interest in fly fishing was just kind of self-generated, actually. I've always had the interest in fishing and, you know, as a, as a young man reading all these outdoor magazines of the day, you know, fly fishing just had this allure to it and it always attracted me. And when I first got into it, I'm a hundred percent self-taught. So the learning curve was very long. I mean, it was very long and, you know, nowadays there's so many, so many resources out there for a beginning angler that you can really get into this a lot quicker than I did.
Katie
Yeah, I know a lot of people used to get into it via text and I just can't imagine learning to fly cast via a book or something like that versus even a video.
Bart
And that's exactly what it was. And the books were dated. They weren't like – and I go back and we talked about fly fishing and I actually – oh, I thought I had a copy of the book on my desk here. But one of my first fly fishing books was the line drawings. I would love to hold up a picture of the book just to show you what these line drawings were like and then you had to create a fly from these drawings. Hold on one second, I'm gonna step - I see the book in the back here, I'm gonna step away and I'm coming right back. So this book has been around for, you know, since I was a kid and this is a warm water fly fishing book actually. It's “Fly tying and Fly fishing for Bass" by Tom Nixon. And when you look at some of these drawings that were in here, you know, this is what you had to work with.
Katie
Oh man, yeah. It's like the equivalent of a stick figure person, but with fly fishing.
Bart
Exactly. And nowadays we have YouTube. So you go from these very simple, basic line drawings to just these incredibly produced YouTube videos that show every detail and, you know, the, we have some very, very talented tires out there that explain every step of the process. And, you know, I've been fly tying for almost as long as I've been fly fishing. And that was a very long learning curve too. And now I see, uh, folks just getting into it and, you know, they're tying better than me with, you know, 12 months, two years experience, you know? So it's fantastic to see.
Katie
You know, I gotta say though, I feel like fly tying still has, or print media still has a big place in fly tying in my opinion. I'm still, what I would consider relatively new to it, you know, I know the basics and everything, but I'm by no means an expert fly tier. But I feel like having all the pictures right in front of you, without having to take a YouTube video back, you know, keep returning it back one minute in the past to see what happened. I actually really like having the book in front of me to follow the picture so I can have them there in front of me permanently instead of having to scroll back and forth in the video. So I think video is best for fly casting, but I think it'll take a lot to kill off the books for fly tying.
Bart
I agree with you. I like the books as well, especially the books that have been produced in the last 15, 20 years. Once the book started producing a lot of high quality color photographs and the authors actually took the time to document every step of the time process, it made it a lot easier to understand what was going on. And I apologize to the listeners here, we're talking about a book that I'm showing you a picture of, they have no idea what I'm talking about. But you may have an entire description of a fly that has multiple steps that were explained in four very simple line drawings. You know, and you had to make heads or tails of, you know, you knew what the end result was supposed to look like, and you had to figure out how to get there on your own. And sometimes it just never happened.
Katie
Oh yeah, there's a big difference between a black and white line drawing of fly tying and a high quality, high resolution image, color image of fly tying, for sure.
Bart
Yeah, absolutely. So kind of got off the track there. You know, the interest in panfish, how did that come about? Well, you know, there's always been an interest in these fish, just because they're accessible. I do a lot of fishing for other species. I'm a very avid, you know, trout and salmon angler and spend a lot of time trout fishing. And my nearest trout stream is it's at least an hour and 15 minutes from my house, from my front door.
Katie
So where are you located?
Bart
I'm actually located in central New Jersey. So we do have, believe it or not, we have some some very good trout water in the state, and the closest of that water is about an hour and 15 minutes away from me. But I can literally be walking the shorelines of a local farm pond or floating in my kayak. Or you can see behind me there, there's a float tube.
Katie
Yeah, I noticed that.
Bart
Literally five minutes from my front door. So for me, trout fishing is an all day experience. You have to plan to free up that time for an entire day. And where panfish and some of the warm water species, they're just available. They're minutes away from the front door. So I could either sneak out the door after dinner and catch that last hour or two before gets dark and still be home to spend some time with family. Where if I'm going trout fishing, I got a two and a half hour commute, and you're going to travel that much time, so you want to spend some time on the water. It ends up being a big commitment of time, where panfish is not. It's very accessible, and I can fish as often as I want.
Katie
Yeah, I feel like what you're saying is really applicable across the board. So there's some people who you can go out for an hour and catch trout. I can get trout within ten minutes of my house. But I feel like that's not necessarily the norm. There's a lot of people who it is a full day trip or even a full, you know, long weekend to get to good trout fishing. Whereas almost everybody is within, you know, probably a twenty minute drive of a good bluegill pond or a bass pond or something.
Bart
And that is absolutely the truth. When you think about it, there's a lot more states without trout than with. And for many anglers, fly fishing becomes something they do twice a year when they go on vacation, you know, and they're not fishing throughout the rest of the year because they have the impression that, well, you fly fish for trout or you fly fish for bonefish or for salmon or what steelhead, whatever the case may be. And yet there's quality fly fishing 10 minutes from their front door that, you know, either they just haven't tapped into or they just haven't thought about it. And when you get right down to it, you know, these fish are scrappers. If you scale down your tackle and, you know, instead of throwing, you know, five and six weights, you're throwing two and three weights or even a soft action four weight, you can have a blast with these fish. They're a lot of fun.
Katie
Yeah, there's a lot of fight per pound, I feel like in this little fish.
Bart
I agree. And if I honestly think I think that if these fish grew to 10 pounds, nobody would fish for anything else.
Katie
Oh, I agree.
Bart
They'd probably be one of the most popular fish swimming.
Katie
Speaking of that, I was gonna get to this later, but we kind of transitioned to it naturally there. Where do you catch trophy panfish, or how do you catch trophy panfish? Because around me, I don't really see much more than the size of the palm of my hand. And growing up in Pennsylvania, I did see some bigger ones, but you see pictures of these just massive bluegill and other panfish. Where do you catch these things? Where can you find the trophy ones?
Bart
Well, one of the things about panfish are, you know, when one of the things that they get kind of dished on by people is the fact that they're so easy to catch. And, you know, you can catch them with a bear hook at times. And there's truth to that. I mean, if you fish for these guys during, you know, their pre-spawn or during spawning season, they are very, very easy to catch. The one thing to keep in mind is that everything that swims in, let's take your typical farm pond, everything in that farm pond from dragonfly larva to other fish to birds and other animals eat bluegill. I mean, they are a forage species. So for those fish to get large, they have to be doing something different from the rank and file. got to be a little bit different. And that's where the challenge comes in. If you go into, you know, any fly shop or any sports bar, and you know, how many times have you seen these trophy muskies and brown trout and rainbow trout and bass hanging on the wall? How many times can you think in your life that you've seen a 13 or 14 inch bluegill hanging up there? These fish exist, they're out there, but they may actually be one of the hardest freshwater trophies to catch, you know, because they didn't get to that size by doing the same thing that, you know, these other bluegills do. And so there is a there is a little bit of a challenge to that. Now there are certain parts of the country that grow larger fish. And you know, that could be it could be an environmental factor. Where are you located now? You're out in Colorado?
Katie
Colorado.
Bart
Yeah. you're in an area, now I know there are some areas out there that do have some decent size fish, but certain parts of the country grow bigger fish than others. Here in New Jersey, you wouldn't think that we're known for particularly large panfish, but I have caught quite a few fish that creeping up on almost that two-pound mark. These are big bluegills. They're pretty big.
Katie
And for the most part, I don't even consider just the absolute monsters as being a trophy. Basically anything over the size of my hand I'm starting to consider a little bit more highly than what I usually find around here, which is usually around the size of my hand. But back in Pennsylvania I do remember catching some what I would consider larger bluegills. What parts of the country are known for the bigger ones?
Bart
Well we have, obviously the further south you go the longer the growing season is, but There are some places in the north, when you get up into Minnesota and Wisconsin and some of those up in that lake region up there in the northern part of the country, they're known for some very large panfish as well, sunfish. It's not just here, we keep saying bluegills, but there's a whole host of sunfish species that fall into that general category of panfish. are one of the, you know, one of those sunfish that reach, have the ability to reach those larger sizes. You can find, you know, larger fish from, you know, Minnesota all the way down to Florida, but I think as you get further into the south, in the southwest, their growing seasons are a little bit longer, so the fish can, you know, they can put on that weight a little bit quicker.
Katie
That kind of brings us back to maybe where we should have started, which is, what do What do you consider a panfish? Because I know, you know, when I think of panfish, it's bluegill and basically everything that's shaped like a bluegill, but I know people consider bass panfish as well sometimes. So what do you consider panfish?
Bart
Yeah, I think different people look at it in different ways. I mean, you know, some folks, you know, use that word pan to just like you did to describe the shape of the fish. You know, sunfish are what we call laterally compressed, so they have these flat wide bodies and kind of dish shaped or pan shaped. Other folks use that word pan fish. It's any small edible fish that will fit in a pan and the bluegills and other sunfish certainly fall into that category. For myself, I consider all of the true sunfishes, panfish, alpro, crappie and rock bass or warm mouth into that category as well. And I'll even go outside of species like yellow perch, white perch, maybe even fish like white bass. But largemouth bass, smallmouth bass, and all the other black basses, they are members of the sunfish family, but I myself don't lump them into the panfish category.
Katie
Yeah, I think your definition sounds about like what I've considered panfish. I would definitely consider yellow perch to be one. And I've always heard the same thing that you mentioned where it's fish that are good for throwing in a pan.
Bart
Yeah, and if you want to do that, we can start calling wild brook trout panfish. They certainly fit in pan real nice.
Katie
Most of the fish I catch would be considered panfish if we're just going by size.
[laughter]
Katie
So, what are some of the differences? Because I think it's really easy for people to kind of lump them all together. And I'm definitely guilty of that, too. I see anything that's shaped like a bluegill, and I assume it's probably going to act very similar to a bluegill, including things like yellow perch. But how distinct are the different species and how are they different?
Bart
For the most part, most of the sunfishes behave the same. There is one species called the shellcracker or red-eared sunfish, and they're found predominantly in the South and more Southern locales than here. I do have a couple areas up here where they've been introduced by landowners, but they're not a native fish. Not that the current range of the bluegill is their native range as well. I mean, they've been spread to, I think 49 out of the 50 states. But the red ear or the shellcracker, this is a fish that has really adapted to feeding on crustaceans and mollusks. So they actually have a set of teeth back on their tongue for breaking up shellfish and dealing with things like crayfish and stuff. And they do occasionally feed on the surface, but for the most part, they're feeding lower in a water column. So they behave a little bit differently. There's kind of a neat sunfish that looks like a mix between a crappie and a bluegill called a flyer. And they behave a little bit differently. Once they reach a certain size, they really key in on like aquatic minnows like crappie do. and they look kind of like a mix between the two. Obviously many anglers are familiar with crappie, they consider them sunfish and they feed and behave differently as well. But as far as the most of the true sunfishes, the bluegills, the pumpkin seeds, the red ears, or excuse me, the red breast, the long-eared sunfish, other than the environments that they live in, What works for one species will generally work for another. They all pretty much have the same feeding characteristics, the same diet. So techniques that you're using to catch bluegills will work on pumpkin seed sunfish or red breast sunfish, but that the environment that you're targeting these fish may be different.
Katie
So do you wanna expand a little bit on that? Like where would you be looking for each of these different species?
Bart
Sure, when you think about sunfish in general, Maine has such a wide range of habitat, from tidal rivers with brackish water, that has I think they can tolerate salt water as high as like 18%, to all kinds of standing water impoundments like farm ponds and man-made and natural lakes to large man-made reservoirs. They're also found in a lot of river systems. warm water rivers with slow to moderate current, you'll find sunfish species in some of these areas. And, you know, some fish are a little bit more current tolerant than others. For here in New Jersey, a lot of our wild trout streams also contain red breast sunfish. So, we find them in moving water quite a bit, where species like a bluegill or a pumpkin seed, they'll prefer or actually do better in still waters. But it's not uncommon to catch, let's say our Delaware River, which is just a few minutes from my house, it's loaded with all sorts of sunfish species. So as long as they're not... They really don't thrive in fast current environments, but they'll slow to moderate flows or someplace where they can get out of the current. You can find them in moving water as well as still water. And there's natural ranges of these fish. Bluegill have been introduced across the country. Every pond that is built, they usually get some sort of sunfish bass mix to keep insect populations down and just to put a self-populating fish population in there. So they've been introduced from coast to coast, north to south. Some of these sunfish had smaller natural ranges, but through man-made stocking, and both organized stocking and bucket biologists, they've been introduced all over the country. So you really never know what's gonna turn up in the water. And sometimes it's a little bit difficult to identify what you catch, because there is some cross-pollination, if you would, that takes place. there is some hybrid fish that may be part pumpkin seed, part bluegill, or part bluegill and green sunfish. So sometimes you'll catch a fish and you're looking at it and you don't know what you're holding in your hands.
Katie
Yeah, I've definitely been there. And you see a couple features from different fish that you know you're supposed to be able to find on them. I've definitely seen the pumpkin seed, like the blue stripes that they have on their face. I've seen those on fish that don't really look like pumpkin seeds or the classic bluegill something that doesn't really look like a pure bluegill, but I've never actually figured out what it is that I'm holding at that moment.
Bart
Yeah, so that happens if multiple sunfish species were stocked. Like here in New Jersey, our native sunfish was the pumpkin seed. That was probably the largest native sunfish. We do have a couple interesting little sunfish down in the Pine barrens. These fish are very small. They're banded sunfish or mud sunfish. And right now, I think all those species are on the endangered list. And they have very small, isolated populations because they live in a niche kind of environment down in those pine barrens. But the pumpkin seed was our native. Bluegills were not native to New Jersey. And now I think you'd be hard-pressed to to find a body of water that does not have bluegill swimming in it. So they've been introduced far and wide.
Katie
Now, do you know why bluegill seems to have been the chosen fish to just get spread all over the US, whereas some of the other panfish just aren't as common? Or you might find them in one or two little pockets here and there, but not everywhere?
Bart
Well, they all have kind of different characteristics. some of the sunfish have a propensity to overpopulate a little quicker than others. I think pumpkin seeds have that kind of reputation that if they get into a waterway and their populations aren't checked by natural predators or fishing pressure, their numbers can get out of hand pretty quick. It's my understanding that one of the reasons bluegills, they can also do the same, but they're not as prone to overpopulation and stunting as some of the other sunfish species. And they're really the perfect fish when you get right down to it. They're easily caught by anglers. Not only are they a target species for anglers, but they're also a forage species for other larger fish like bass and pike and musky walleye. eats a bluegill at some stage in their life. That's, I think, the main reason that they were distributed, because not only were they a targeted species by anglers, but they could also be used as a forage fish. They're serving a double duty there.
Katie
Sure. Off the top of your head, do you happen to know what some of the native ranges for some of the more popular, like maybe bluegill, perch, crappie, what are the native ranges of some of these fish?
Bart
Well, I think with the, if memory serves correct, with the Bluegill, they were basically from Southern Canada to Florida, down through like the Mississippi River drainage, and then onto the Virginia plains in Piedmont, and then from Virginia, south of Florida. The Northeast, basically from like the Great Lakes, south down into Florida, east to Virginia, and west as far as, I believe, New Mexico and northern Mexico. Like I think Rio Grande had a blue whale population. So, and through stocking, their ranges were expanded both east and west. So they got into the mid-Atlantic, and from now they're found, I believe they're found in every state of the nation exception of Alaska.
Katie
Okay. I was wondering what the 50th state was.
Bart
Yep. Alaska, as far as I know, does not have any bluegill populations, but their range has been expanded far past that. I mean, they're now all through central and into South America, Indonesia, Japan, South Africa, and a lot of places are considered an invasive species.
Katie
Interesting.
Bart
Outside of the United States, Japan being one of them. They were introduced into Japan and they were stocked into a lot of watersheds along with largemouth bass. And they've kind of out-competed some local species and put some local species at risk. Their range has really been expanded quite a bit.
Katie
Yeah, I feel like you don't usually think of a small prey species like that being the one that takes over. You think of like pike. have come out here to Colorado and there's a lot of places where they'll pay you to keep pike and get them out of there, or brown trout or something like that, some other predatory species. You don't really think of bluegill as being something that's going to wreak havoc on an ecosystem.
Bart
Well, one of the ways that they can do that is that they're colony nesters. So when you think about how a fish that makes a nest, like a largemouth bass or a trout making a red in a river. They make these individual solitary nests where bluegills nest in most of the true submissives, they nest in colonies. So you won't have one fish nesting, you may have several hundred fish nesting over a fairly large area. And if they're sharing that nesting habitat with other fish species, they can very quickly outcompete those fish. One of the things that's unique about bluegills is that it's the male bluegill, the male sunfish that will scope out the nest or nesting territory will actually prepare the nest once it attracts a female and the eggs are fertilized. The male, the female leaves and it's the male fish that stays behind and guards the nest from predators and will even guard the young once they're hatched for a while. So and they're, they're pretty aggressive about it. And that's one of the reasons why they're so easy to catch during that time of year. They almost commit suicide because anything that comes close to that nest is going to get attacked. Now, if you figure you had other fish that shared that same kind of spawning habitat, nobody's getting any spawning done if there's a colony of bluegills nearby. So that's one way that they could actually negatively impact a native species.
Katie
Sure, that makes sense.
Bart
competition for spawning out of that.
Katie
Now are there, do you know if there are any sort of like ethical conundrums that people face with fishing for spawning bluegill? Like there is with, you know, the whole like do not fish reds when trout are spawning, like browns in the fall. Is there any sort of similar thing for panfish or do people just say go catch 'em?
Bart
You know, it's probably the opposite. Maybe there should be, but I think there's a whole big portion of the angling public that that's the only time that they target these fish because they are so easy to catch. If you're looking for a challenge, try catching a big bluegill in the dog days of summer or just after ice out or during the fall. These fish can be a real challenge to catch at times. In the spring, they're not. In the spring, you could literally animate a plain old hook with nothing on it and place fish to strike. Where the real ethical concern is, it's those large male fish that are important to the population. And those are exactly the fish that everybody seems to wanna take home. Like most species, everybody likes to take home the largest that they can catch. And most sunfish make their excellent table fare. They're great eating. And in many places, their populations could sustain selective harvest with no ill effects on the overall fish population. But it's those large males that really need protection. And there's a lot of states, I think I mentioned before, Minnesota and Wisconsin, and a lot of these northern states where it takes a long time for a mature male bluegill to reach a length over say eight inches. Some of these 10-inch fish may be 10 or more years old. And that's the portion of the population that really needs to be protected. And when a lot of those large male fish are taken out of the ecosystem, their genes are not being passed on. The smaller some fish, they do have a tendency to... The larger the fish is, the better it's going to do as far as protecting that nest or in spawning and warding off threats to the nest, where the smaller fish aren't that successful. And it can negatively impact overall populations. And I think that's really the big concern with anglers just taking a lot of these large male fish out of the population. And in a lot of places, they can, like I said, there's selective harvest. You can collect more than your share of these fish to enjoy a meal or two, but you're better off taking those fish that are under eight inches in length and releasing those larger fish just to keep those good genes going.
Katie
Okay. So it's less about targeting them while they're on their beds and more about just keeping the big ones.
Bart
That's where the issue comes in. I actually think that most of that bed fishing is what most people equate with pan fishing, especially with a fly rod. That's what everybody waits for. They're waiting for those fish to get on the bed so they can enjoy some easy fishing.
Katie
Do all the pan fish, I assume probably not, but is there a similar time of year? I know that bluegills at least are spring, early summer, right?
Bart
For spawning?
Katie
For spawning, yeah.
Bart
They, within a couple of degrees, they all spawn fairly close to one another. Probably the crappie spawn a little bit earlier. They're a little more tolerant to cooler water. They will spawn in water that's a little bit cooler than the other sunfish species. And from species to species, there may be a five degree difference in preference to water temperature. But once that water is getting up to where in most parts of the country we're in that mid-spring time frame. And again, that mid-spring could be spawning conditions in the deep south could be February, March. Here in New Jersey, it's end of April into May. And when you get up into the northern tier states, you're looking at June and July. So it's really when you get into that kind of late spring, early summer type water temps is when you'll start to see those fish spawning.
Katie
Okay, and is there anything else notable throughout the year with people targeting them? You know, once the spawn ends, how does the rest of the year kind of cycle through when it comes to tactics and things for targeting them?
Bart
So early in the season, before spawning season, it's really the same thing will apply for very late season. Most panfish are fish of the shallows. You know, they're usually found in relatively shallow water, although you can find them deeper at times. But they're fish that really orient strongly to shoreline cover. They're pretty much part of shallow water fish. They spawn in shallow water. So early spring is when they start to enter the shallows. But panfish feed or sunfish, they feed year round. If anyone's ever done any ice fishing, one of the most popular fish targeted through the ice are bluegill and crappie. So they do feed year round and it's not impossible. I start fishing for them if I have the time and get a couple of days of stable weather. They'll right after ice out. I've caught them as early in years that we've had some, where we don't get a lot of ice here. I've caught them in February from the bank. What'll typically happen in colder water is that they'll retreat from the shallows. They get out to deeper, more stable. And that's really what they're seeking. just seeking stable conditions, stable temperatures. So they'll kind of get away from the shallows, they'll school up a lot of times by year class and they'll move out into deeper water. And if you can fish a relatively small body of water where you can access some of that deeper water from the shoreline if you're fishing from shore or from some sort of watercraft, you can usually catch these fish year round. As we get into spring, as the water begins to warm up, they'll start making short forays into the shallows. The dark mud bottom flats usually warm up quicker and the fish will start to push into those areas. If you have a couple of warm stable days and if the water turns... Excuse me, if the weather turns sour again, they'll just kind of retreat back to deeper water until conditions begin to stabilize where they move into the shallows. pre-spawn when the fish are looking for nesting sites and the larger males start to come into the shallows to prepare their nests, that's when the fishing really begins to get good. You can target fish pretty reliably from early spring to right after the spawn. Once the fish are done spawning, they once again will kind of retreat to a little bit deeper water. larger male fish will definitely, they often leave the shallows and they'll get out of the shallows and head off to some deeper structure. When we get into those really dog days of summer, the water that's real shallow kind of gets a little bit too warm for them. So they may come into those areas early in the morning or late in the evening to feed and then they'll seek out water that's a little bit deeper that has protection in the form of vegetation, lily pads or weed beds, fallen trees, things of that nature. And really, when we get into those mid-summer days, your real best time to fish is like with most other fishes, the fish early in the morning or late in the evening. And you'll find that the fishing usually improves as as opposed to, you know, pro and flies out there in the middle of a bluebird sky, bright sun, you know, really hot. You can sometimes feel like there's not a fish in a lake, but then as soon as that sun gets behind the hills and things begin to cool off a little bit, the lake just comes alive. When we get into fall, the fish again, will, they'll be in those shallows. As the water cools down, we'll move back into the shallows, but then at some point, things are going to get a little too cold for them and they're going to push deeper again. And really they're catchable year round, it's just you have to change your tactics. All the sunfish are very avid feeders on the surface. They love to feed off the surface. For a fly fisher, that's the perfect fish. A fish that'll eat a dry fly on a regular basis. But when we get into some of these tougher seasons, you have to change your tactics. One of my favorite ways to pursue cold water panfish are with wet flies, soft tackles. Just fish very deep and very, very slowly. It really gets kind of technical for these cold water fish.
Katie
Yeah, I've taken quite a few panfish on the surface, although I don't see them rise too often when I'm not fishing for them on the surface. Maybe that's just the area that I happen to fish in. But I see them, my fly lands, they're immediately up on it, but then I'm not seeing them coming to the surface in between those casts. I don't know if there's just not anything available for them on the surface or what.
Bart
That's what it is. When we fly fish for trout in the middle of a hatch, there's a tremendous amount of food on the surface of the water, so that's why we see fish rising all over in a place. Think about trout fishing during a time when there's no hatch present. You don't see a lot of fish rising there either. And you know, the panfish are very opportunistic feeders where there are certainly aquatic insects that emerge like in a trout stream. And if you happen to be on the water at that time, you will see that same activity. You'll see dimples from shore to shore from these fish feeding. But they also rely heavily on terrestrial type insects. Everything from, you know, dragonflies and damselflies to moths and ants and beetles and all the things that, you know, all the terrestrials that are in your trout box will work on a bluegill pond. And most of these ponds are ringed with vegetation, either tall grasses or trees, and bugs are constantly falling off into the water. So food that ends up on the surface of the water. So they're always looking up for a meal. But it's true, unless there is some sort of active hatch going on, you're not going to see those rising fish all over the place.
Katie
That's probably a pretty good segue into some of the flies that you might throw for panfish. I feel like what's nice about fishing for them is they're not as selective as trout. I often will, you know, when I'm tying flies and one doesn't turn out very well, I'm like, I'll just throw that for bluegill. I don't have to throw it out. But what are some of your favorite flies for panfish specifically?
Bart
Well, for, you hit on a good point that one of the things that make these fish so special is that they're not overly selected. Most of the time. There are times that, you know, they can, you know, make you nuts. And we're talking about these shoulder seasons, early, early, early spring, late winter, or through the fall, or even sometimes in the middle of the summer, they seem to develop a case of lockjaw. But by and large, they're pretty forgiving fish. And that's one of the things that makes them so special is that they're a fish that, again, they don't care about your ugly flies. lot of cases they don't care about your ugly casts either so that they're the absolute perfect fish for a beginner and the claw I really want to touch on that at some point so we'll come back to that but as far as flies go like most anglers I love to take pan fish off the surface so you know dry flies or or floating flies of some sort are at the top of the list when you know conditions warrant. So anything from foam bugs to small poppers to some, I tie some pretty neat little deer hair patterns for them. And even those flies that are in your, you know, just about every trout fly that you have, dry fly that's in your trout boxes, will work on these fish. They're not particularly picky. If it looks like food, they're going to try and eat it. And if they can fit it in their mouth, they're going to. One of the things that are unique about these fishes, they do have fairly small mouths. So you do have to kind of consider that when it comes to your fly sizes. But I think any bass angler will tell you that they're always amazed when they hook a bluegill on a fly meant for bass or pike. I mean, I've caught big bluegill on pike flies while pike fishing. It's amazing that they can get a one-odd or two-odd hook in their mouth, but somehow they manage to do it. If they want it bad enough, they'll find a way to eat it. Go ahead.
Katie
Oh, I was just going to say, yeah, I've noticed that I actually prefer trying to size down a little bit for them, because if I'm trying not to keep a fish, I don't want to have to get my hemostats down in the mouth, because it's sometimes hard to get out, because they'll suck it down in there. So I'll often fish barbless and smaller flies than necessary when I'm trying to release panfish because I don't want to have to get a fly that's taking up the entire mouth out with my hemostats.
Bart
And I kind of go to the opposite end of the spectrum where I'll fish larger flies because one of the neat things about fishing for panfish is they share their waters with a lot of other interesting fish.
Katie
That's true, yeah.
Bart
You know, fish like largemouth bass and pickerel and smallmouth and pike and, you know, the, I actually prefer to fish flies that may be a little bit larger than what most people will fish. And by, and how that works is it kind of discourages some of those smaller fish. So maybe you're, you're, you're getting less action, but when, when you do get a take, it's usually a fish that feels it's capable of taking down that larger meal. those larger offerings, they'll attract the attention of predator species like bass or pickerel or pike. It's always a mixed bag fishing locally. When I'm out for an evening of throwing bugs for bluegills in spring or early summer, there's always a largemouth bass or two that comes out to play, or a good-sized chain pickerel or a small pike. kind of adds to the excitement. So you really don't know when that fly goes down what's on the other end of it. I had an experience about two years ago with a fish that sipped the fly as gently as could be off the surface. And it was just a small cork popper, nothing special. But that fly disappeared like it was just being dragged down by a tiny bluegill. And when I set the hook, it was almost a seven pound largemouth.
Katie
Oh, wow. I'm sure that was a surprise.
Bart
Yeah. And it was just, of course, it was a lot of fun on a four weight, but when the fish finally came to hand, I was just blown away that it took that fly so gently, you know, without any disturbance on the water, basically just sipped it like a trout sipping a spinner off the surface. And, you know, normally big bass, they normally are not interested and flies like that. And when a fish that size takes an insect or a fly off the surface, it's usually with quite a bit of commotion. So that's pretty cool when something like that happens.
Katie
Yeah, you always wonder how they even physically do that. I feel like just by opening their mouth, usually there's a big kind of bucket of water that just disappears.
Bart
Exactly. You would think that, and that's what really blew my mind, either from my angle I wasn't seeing things properly, or maybe I wasn't paying attention. But the way I remember the event, it was just, I set the hook on what I thought was a, you know, a little pesky fish that was just because that'll happen. Sometimes these smaller fish won't be able to take that, that larger size six popper down. But what they can do is grab a rubber leg and start dragging it around, you know, and that's, that's kind of how I remember things going down. And when I just kind of really wasn't even setting hook, I was just picking to lay down somewhere else and when I went to pick up that fly the lodges been doubled. It was pretty cool.
Katie
Yeah that's something I've noticed often I'll fish like a small woolly bugger in those areas that have bluegill and bass thinking that you know I'll pick up a small bass or a larger bluegill and a lot of times I get just a lot of nibbles the whole you know I'm stripping it back in and I just feel fish bumping it and I assume it's just a lot of small fish that can't really fit it in their mouths but they're trying.
Bart
It could be it could be. And sometimes too, so that's the top water flies, but again, like most fish, they do the vast majority of their feeding underneath the surface of the water, just like a trout. And so subsurface flies are usually more effective. And a lot of folks don't really spend a lot of time targeting these fish with subsurface flies. I mentioned earlier that I think wet flies are probably my hands down favorite, whether they're soft or traditional winged wet flies. I have a real large variety of different wet patterns that I will fish, as well as small nymph patterns. Basically, again, any nymph in your trout boxes will work on these guys. But if you're looking to match the hat, so to speak, dragonfly and damselfly larvae are always present. and they're an important food source for these fish. So I'll fish a lot of damsel and dragonfly nymphs. And even when you come into, the larger fish will feed on other fish. So small streamers, you mentioned woolly buggers earlier, but I have a large variety of small streamers. And by small, we're talking a size 12 up to about a size six with maybe an eight or a 10 being in the sweet spot. So it runs the gamut, everything from streamers to dry flies. You can catch panfish on. And sometimes some of those unusual methods, such as a slowly fished wet fly or a small streamer, that may be the ticket to catching those larger specimens.
Katie
OK. Yeah, that makes sense. And like you said, kind of weed out some of the smaller ones, because I feel like one of the keys to catching the larger ones has to be just keeping the small ones off your line long enough to give the bigger ones a chance to get to it, because you're often casting into an area that has a whole bunch of them, and you'll get the first one that sees it.
Bart
And that's very true, and that's where these larger fish don't necessarily, outside of the spawning season, they're not occupying the same water. So if you are catching nothing but smaller fish, that's probably all you are going to catch. Yeah, those larger fish will tend to, once the spawn is done, they will tend to move off and they'll seek other types of structure. They're not necessarily just littering the shallows like the smaller fish do. They may be seeking out subsurface structure like rock piles or drop offs or maybe they're getting back into fallen trees that are along banks or submerged timber. So when I'm looking to target these bigger fish, that's what I look to do. I get away from the shore and I start looking for structure further away from the bank, such as weed beds. Usually then it requires some sort of watercraft, because when you're fishing from shore, you're usually going to be limited to yourself to those smaller fish that are just all over the shallows.
Katie
Now I know you mentioned earlier that a two or three weight is usually your preferred, maybe up to a four weight. Is that pretty standard? Use a floating line I assume for most of these?
Bart
Yeah, I mean I use a floating line for about 95% of my fishing. Early and late in the season I do use intermediate and sinking lines to get the flies down to the fish because they will be holding in deeper water. And to be honest with you, my favorite rod for panfish is a moderate action or a soft action like a mid-flex or full-flex four-weight. I think a four-weight gives me the ability to throw those larger flies a little bit easier, those little bit more wind-resistant panfish poppers. Although I do a lot of fishing with the lighter rods, the twos and the three-weights, but If I had to limit myself to one rod, I would either take a modern glass four weight or a rod that was manufactured along the lines of like an Orvis Superfine or something like that. A rod that's a little bit more of a slower action rod in a four weight I think would be my go-to. Any rods two to four are perfect for these fish. And there's certain times a year that the five weight even comes into play, where I'm either dealing with windier conditions, or maybe I'm throwing small streamers, or upfishing those intermediate or sinking lines. It's very difficult to find a full sink or a full intermediate line in a four weight. Usually a five weight is where you start to see those lines coming into play.
Katie
And how about your leader? to basically match the fly with the leader?
Bart
Yeah, just like every other fly fishing type experience, it's a tapered leader. I know a lot of anglers will just throw a piece of mono on the end of their fly line and call it done. But I fish tapered leaders. I actually design a lot of my own leaders based on what type of flies I'm fishing. Maybe a leader that turns over larger, more wind-resistant flies like foam bugs and poppers. I have a couple of leader formulas that I tie up for those types of patterns. I will fish straight fluorocarbon leaders, short sections of four feet or so off of sinking in intermediate lines when I'm presenting flies deeply. And even in the winter months, we do get, at least in my area, we get a lot of these fish feeding on midges. So these may be small surface midges, adults on the surface, or larva and pupa, and we're talking the same kind of small stuff that trout eat. So that would be a totally different leader setup as well. So that's a longer, finer, lighter leader.
Katie
Sure. Okay. Now, I know you mentioned a couple minutes ago that you wanted to come back to it, but you mentioned that panfish are a great way for people to get started. I know it sounds like you kind of got started a lot on panfish, you know, being in the area, but do you just want to kind of expand on that and why they're such a great species to target for a beginner?
Bart
Yeah, absolutely. So over the years I've done a lot of instruction and in the last, since retiring from my main career six years ago, I have basically become a fly fishing and fly tying instructor. That's what I'm doing in my free time these days. And I think the easiest way to get somebody into fly fishing is to introduce them to panfish, to sunfish in particular. These fish are very easy to catch. Like I said earlier, they're forgiving of poor presentations. One of the hardest things to do as a fly fishing guide is taking an angler that has never fly before, putting a fly rod in their hands, taking them out onto a trout stream and getting them into fish. It could be a challenge. I mean, trout can be pretty tough sometimes, even for those of us that have been doing it for 40 years. You know, there's still many days I come walking away from the stream, scratching my head and wondering what the hell I did wrong that day. I can honestly say that's never happened on my local Bluegill pond, right? I can get a novice angler into fish almost every single time. No matter how bad of a caster they are, how poor their presentation is, we can usually find a fish to cooperate. And just like anything else in life, the more you do something, the better you get at it. And go back to your own fly fishing learning curve. How long was it from the time that you first picked up the fly rod to when you were catching fish on a regular basis?
Katie
Oh, I don't know, probably at least seven straight days of fishing before I felt like I "knew what I was doing" instead of just trusting what someone else had told me, I guess.
Bart
Right. So there's, and for some anglers, it's seven or eight weeks, seven or eight months. I've taken folks out on the river that, you know, finally decided to lay out money for a guide that had been fly fishing for two years and haven't caught a fish yet. And that's what fly fishing can do sometimes to a beginning angler. But to take somebody and bring them out for, for example, for the work that we do in Orvis, they have a fly fishing 101 class, which is a basic introduction to fly fishing. And then there's a 201 level class where we take those 101 students and we take them out. We don't take them out to a trout stream. We take them out to a local bluegill pond. And every one of those students ends up catching one or more fish. And you know, you learn how to fight fish. You learn how to set the hook better because you're actually doing it. It's not just working off a theory like you said, something that somebody told you. You're doing it firsthand. You just learn quicker.
Katie
For sure, and like from my experience at least, trout, the reason I feel like I picked it up a little quicker is that I was doing it all day, every day, like I kind of jumped in and immersed myself into it. But I know that without having that streak of being able to go out all the time, it would have taken a lot longer. And I do know people who have taken years to really get confident in what they're doing, just because if you only get to go out once or twice, then you're throwing the rod in the corner for a month or two, you kind of forget what you're doing. But I feel like for panfish, you can kind of come back to it and pick right up where you left because, like you said, the fish tend to cooperate a little bit more. So you can practice casting in your yard in the meantime and you come back and they're ready to play, but you've gotten better in the meantime, casting in your yard or looking at new flies or things like that.
Bart
Or even just casting to these fish that are about five minutes from your front door. Again, the more you do something, the better you get at it. And there are so many anglers that fly fishing for them is a semi-annual trip to the mountains or a vacation to an area that has trout. And they're not picking up that fly rod. That's why it takes somebody a couple of years to get proficient, because they're only doing it a couple of times a year. Where if these fish are there, they're in your backyard, they're willing, they're great teachers. And that's the main reason that I started that Panfish on the Fly website, was to get folks interested in these fish that are right there in their backyard and to kind of pull the curtain back a little bit in the fly fishing world that it's not just the glamorous species like trout and salmon and steelhead and the saltwater fish, bonefish and tarpon and whatnot. There's a lot of other fish out there that are more than willing to eat your flies.
Katie
For sure. I guess the last thing I wanted to touch on is, are there any, you know, when I think of conservation organizations for fish, I'm thinking of like Trout Unlimited, Bonefish Tarpon Trust, like you said, kind of the glamorous species. But are there any specific Japan fish conservation organizations?
Bart
Not that I know of, but again, my particular region that I'm in is not necessarily known for panfish, or some parts of the country that are, so I imagine there may be some sort of localized conservation groups. But nothing that I know of on a national scale like Trout Unlimited. I've been involved in Trout Unlimited for many, many years, president of our local chapter. So I'm not aware of a group that's actually targeting these fish because I don't think they're facing the same kind of threats. Our cold water species like trout and salmon, they have a lot of threats out there to their environment. And of course, that adversely affects the fishing. Where these fish are pretty hardy and they're in a much different place. They're far more widespread than trout and salmon, and they can live in a much larger variety of habitats. So they're not really stuck in that niche of cold, clean water. They can tolerate a wide range of conditions. So I don't think they face the same threats.
Katie
That's kind of good to hear, though. It's good to hear that there's not that many conservation organizations around that because they don't really need it. You can't say that about many things.
Bart
Yeah, I do think that there is some conservation efforts that need to take place. Just again, educating folks about the importance of those larger male fish and how removing them from the ecosystem could negatively impact the overall fish populations. I don't think that's something that is widely known. I know as the years have gone on, I've heard more and more conversations and read more and more articles and magazines and whatnot about that issue. So hopefully over time, more folks will get that message. And it's one of those fish that you can take a couple home guilt-free and enjoy a fresh meal of local fish, but you still have to be conscious of what's going on in the environment.
Katie
For sure. I guess that just made me think of one more thing. How can you tell a male from a female? Are you just going off the fact that the large male is the one guarding the nest if you're fishing for them on their nests? Or how can you tell the difference?
Bart
So it kind of varies from species to species, but there's definitely some telltale signs. Usually, like with most species, the males will be more brightly colored than the females. You may see see some different body shapes between the two. And I know scientifically there's a number of ways of doing that as well. For me, it's just been an experience thing of handling so many of these fish. It's pretty easy to tell right off the bat what you have in your hands. But if you have those larger the males predominantly grow a little bit larger, and they are a lot more brightly colored than the females. And if you're fishing during the spawning season, chances are that's what you're catching, because those are the fish, again, that are guarding the nests, and they're aggressively taking anything that comes their way.
Katie
Okay, perfect.
Bart
So you're most likely catching the male fish.
Katie
Well, do you just wanna finish up by sharing where people can find you, if they're looking to visit your website, or find you on social media, or anything like that?
Bart
Sure, absolutely. So I have a website, it's called Panfish on the Fly. And there's a ton of information on the site about warm water fly fishing. And not only for panfish, but some of those other species you may encounter while panfishing. There is also a Facebook page by the same name and a Facebook group by the same name, Panfish on the Fly. And that Facebook group is like I said, we are probably within the next week or two I'm gonna get a top to 10,000 member mark. So that's pretty exciting. I'm also on Instagram, Twitter, by the same name, PanfishOnTheFly. I think it's gonna be @PanfishOnTheFly with underscores in between each word for the Instagram account.
Katie
Okay, and I'll definitely, I know you shared those links with me, so I'll share those in the show notes as well. But it sounds like it's not too hard to find you.
Bart
Nope, no, Panfish on the Fly is going to send you my way.
Katie
All right. Well Bart, I can't thank you enough for coming on. This was super informative and you made me excited for springtime to get out on my local pond. So thank you for that as well.
Bart
Very good. Katie, I enjoyed it a lot.
Katie
All right guys, thanks for listening. Remember to head over to the website fishuntamed.com for all episodes, show notes, blog posts, everything else. If you've got a minute or two, leave a rating or review on iTunes. And if you're looking for me on social media, you can find me @fishuntamed on Instagram or under my name Katie Burgert on GoWild. And that's all for this week, but I'll be back here in two weeks and I'll see you guys then. Bye everybody!
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