Panfish offer a summer’s worth of fishing fun in Arkansas

Catching a mess of monster bluegills is a fun way to catch a tasty meal.
(Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/Bryan Hendricks)
Catching a mess of monster bluegills is a fun way to catch a tasty meal. (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/Bryan Hendricks)


The arrival of summer brings great fishing across the state, including prime opportunities for bream fishing.

Bream, a generic name for the generic "panfish," generally refers to bluegill sunfish and redear sunfish. It also includes longear sunfish, which inhabit Arkansas streams. Though overlooked in the shadow of premier game fish species like bass, crappie and catfish, bream are a lot of fun to catch. They are also easy to catch. They inhabit virtually every body of water in the state, and they are delicious to eat.

BLUEGILLS

Bluegills, the most popular and most accessible of Arkansas' sunfish species, are available in almost any body of water.

Prolific spawners, bluegills move to the banks on every full moon in the summer, so they offer multiple fishing peaks. In clear or shallow water, you can see their spawning beds on sandy or gravel bottoms. They defend their nests vigorously and attack almost any intruder. If bluegills are highly concentrated at the height of the spawn, they will commonly strike bare, gold-colored hooks.

Distinguishable by their dark blue tabs on their gill flaps, spawning bluegills have a deep bronze color with a purplish hue and bright yellow bellies. They can grow quite large, and they fight vigorously against ultralight tackle.

Many anglers use long poles made of graphite, fiberglass and cane. Artificial rods have small reels. Cane poles use a large amount of line wrapped around the tip. The tackle includes a long-shank bream hook, a small bit of split lead shot and a bobber. I prefer a slip bobber. A bobber stopper attached to the line governs the distance the bobber travels up the line, which governs how depth of the bait. The bobber lies on its side with the bait dangling below.

Aim the rod tip at the target. Holding the hook by the shank or by the bend in the hook, sling it to the target. When a bluegill bites, the bobber will stand up straight before the fish drags it underwater. Set the hook by lifting the rod.

Lakes Conway, Overcup and Atkins are premier bluegill fishing destinations in early summer. In western Arkansas, Sugarloaf Lake near Fort Smith and lakes Hinkle and Truman Baker near Waldron are good. Their coves are usually protected from the wind, making them ideal for fishing from kayaks or flatbottom aluminum boats. For kayaks, a small anchor or anchor pole will keep you away from the bank and prevent spooking fish.

Sculling a flatbottom boat with a sculling paddle is an efficient and enjoyable way to quietly work bream beds. After you overcome a steep but short learning curve, sculling is easy to master. You sit on the prow and propel the boat forward by moving a paddle from side to side.

Moving down a bank, you will find bluegill near any kind of wood cover, including fallen trees, stumps, rootwads and brush. Any break in the bank topography hints at good bream habitat, especially where rock meets soil.

Many urban lakes offer generous access to excellent bluegill fishing. Lake Willastein in Maumelle and Sunset Lake in Benton, and Bishop Park in Bryant are good places to start. Lake Norrell near Benton also has a lot of bluegill. Walking trails encircle Willastein and Sunset lakes, offering fishing access to almost every inch of their banks.

Our big Corps of Engineers offer excellent bluegill fishing, as well. This requires fishing a lot deeper than on smaller lakes, and this is where an ultralight spinning rig shines. On lakes like Ouachita, Degray and Greeson, beach your boat in a deep cove and send the bait to the bottom without a bobber. You need a heavy weight to get it past the small bream that hover high in the water column and get it to the bottom where the big bluegills wait. Tightlining is effective, but using a Dipsey sinker with a dropper line keeps the bait off the bottom with less fuss.

If you really want to have some fun, cast a popping bug with a fly rod. Bluegills will savage popping bugs along the bank anytime. A 3-weight fly rod coaxes the fight from any bream. You will catch fish all day casting a surface pattern fly around shoreline cover, especially under bushes that have tent caterpillars.

LONGEAR SUNFISH

If you fish creeks or small rivers, the full moon is also a great time to catch spawning longear sunfish. Anglers call them "pumpkinseeds." They are not as big or as brawny as bluegills, but they are the prettiest fish in Arkansas, and they fight far beyond their size, especially on a fly rod.

We usually catch them incidentally while fishing for smallmouth bass, but longears are eager to play when bass are not active. You will find them almost anywhere on a creek or river. The biggest ones are in deep pockets. Pumpkinseeds bedevil bass fishermen by nipping at bass baits. You can target them by downsizing to tiny hooks and bits of earthworm, meal worms or with tiny jigs or flies.

Longears generally don't get big enough to eat, and although you will usually catch a few palm-size pumpkinseeds, you won't catch enough for a mess.

GREEN SUNFISH

The green sunfish also inhabits most waters in the state. It is very aggressive and very territorial, biting almost anything that invades its space. It is the first fish caught by many young anglers.

You can catch green sunfish on worms, grubs, crickets, flies and jigs. They will also attack small plugs like a floating Rapala minnow and small crawdad imitators.

Be very careful unhooking a green sunfish if you catch one on a lure that has multiple hooks. They shake wildly and are always a threat to hook the angler that catches them.


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