PRACTICAL PANFISH
With opening day trout out of the way in much of the country I'm ready to catch some panfish. I'll be fishing saltwater panfish, rockfish and whatever on Vancouver Island, but who's counting! Panfish -- crappie, bluegills, perch and the like in freshwater, and jacksmelt, perch, and various reef and rockfish -- get me more excited than any billfish and most gamefish.
The reason's simple: billfishing -- aside from the birds, watching the bait and listening to the tall tales of deckhands and maters -- is both boring and expensive all the time, and way too much work on those odd days when you hook something.
Trout fishing is wonderful for the scenics, but I don't like molesting wild trout save for overpopulations of small brookies in ponds and streams, and "truck trout" are only good for smoking.
Bass fishing the way I practice it (and I adore smallmouth bass that you could really lump in with panfish given their average size) has nothing to do with bass boats, "hawg haulin'" gear and the like. I either fish from a canoe or wade. Most of the action is on local rivers far better known for steelhead and salmon. The former are mostly from hatcheries these days -- I figure wild steelhead should be entertaining spawning notions rather than the catch and release set, and salmon this far from the ocean aren't fit to smoke, and are too rare to catch. But smallmouth and crappie fillets from river fish sizzle!
FRESHWATER PANFISH
I'm left with panfish and -- we'll get to that another time -- catfish. Panfish remind me of the plain girls -- from back in the bad days before politically correct substitutes -- who always seemed more entertaining, more frisky and more frequent than the beauty pagent set who never met a mirror they didn't like. Panfish are there in bunches when you want them and seem very cooperative. They're also delicious in a pan.
This time of year you can catch big panfish off spawning beds -- this is usuallly okay as the normal problem with panfish is overpopulation. Just about anything works. I like panfish poppers on my usual #5 weight trout rod or little crappie jigs in the 1/16th to 1/32nd-ounce size on #4 test with the smallest St. Croix ultralight they make. Action's good all day so you have plenty of time for the garden chores.
Sometimes it's crappie -- white or black doesn't matter -- more often here in Idaho it's yellow perch or bluegills. All come by the bucket and can be easily filleted into bite-size bits. Just make sure you bring an ice chest to store these fragile fish for the trip home and try to bring a kid -- your's, the neighbor's or that single paren't child down the streer. Nothing beats panfish to introduce pilgrams to piscatorial pleasures!
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