Panfish

Top Panfish Lakes

by Matt Straw

Making those winter plans? Don't know if you want to ice fish or head South and take in some rays while watching a bobber? Don't have a lot of time to spare? Don't know where to go?

I don't have a lot of time to spare, either, but I know where to go. So let's get down to business. This is about panfish lakes, the best panfish lakes. Lakes that produce slabs, bulls, or numbers of good fish, right now.

Got it? Get busy with the list, because you don't have time to screw around in peanutsville during a hard-earned, well-timed vacation like this one.

SANTEE-COOPER, SOUTH CAROLINA
Santee-Cooper is panfish paradise. For one thing, it produces the biggest shellcrackers on earth. The world record was caught here. Several times. (The record now stands at 5 pounds 7.5 ounces). Slab crappies patrol the endless brushpiles found throughout creek arms in spring, and fish over 2 pounds are fairly common. And Santee-Cooper has bull bluegills weighing over a pound, and lots of water for them to hide in. All of these species are fast growing, found in big numbers, and bite readily during winter.

Santee-Cooper is located about halfway down South Carolina's Atlantic seaboard, not far from the ocean. Panfish paradise? It's just paradise, period. Bring lots of 10-pound line for those crackers, and leave the ice auger at home.

Guide: Glenn Flynn, 803-767-2818.


VALENTINE REFUGE, NEBRASKA
Back to reality. Most years, the lakes of the Valentine Refuge in northern Nebraska freeze hard enough to walk on sometime in January. The lakes are shallow and choked with weeds, but they produce some of the biggest bluegills on earth--some over 2 pounds.

Eight lakes within the Refuge provide plenty of action. The Nebraska Game and Parks Commission lists Rice and Duck lakes as the most popular with bluegill hunters, but Pelican Lake has produced more trophies in the 2-pound range for most anglers. Most of these lakes average only 5 feet in depth. Find green weeds--look for them poking through the surface of the ice, or just keep drilling holes until you find healthy weeds. Big bluegills will be there and will bite sometime during the day.

No motorized vehicles of any kind are allowed on the lakes, but roads follow the shorelines, making it easier for foot soldiers on bull patrol. Bring a portable shelter. First-ice can come as early as Thanksgiving, or as late as New Year's Day.

Contact: Hills Sport Haven, 402-376-1867.


LAKE ST. CLAIR
So many anglers key on the prolific muskie, smallmouth, and walleye bites in this "other" Great Lake that the great panfish action sneaks by unnoticed. The St. Clair River, which connects Lake Huron to the Detroit River and Lake Erie, feeds this massive shallow lake, bringing in tons of plankton and baitfish. St. Clair with its shallow basins and weedy bays is designed to grow big panfish and plenty of them.

The bays on the Canadian side are especially well populated with big bluegills, pumpkinseeds, crappies, and perch. In winter, snowmobile safaris onto an ice-bound St. Clair is as adventurous as panfishing gets. And the rewards are ample. Pack plenty of maggots to tip those Lindy-Little Joe Fat Boys or ISG Plankton Series jigs. Look for green weedlines during the first half of the ice season, and move to basins in the 20-foot range from midwinter on.

Contact: Wally's Bait, 519-256-2841; Trenton Lighthouse Bait, 734-675-7080.


JOHN KERR RESERVOIR, VIRGINIA-NORTH CAROLINA
For the past several years, John Kerr (also called Buggs Island Lake) has been the premier crappie lake on earth for both numbers and trophies. In recent seasons, this prolific crappie lake has produced black crappies over 4 pounds and white crappies over 5 pounds.

All 49,000 acres of John Kerr sprawl over the Virginia border into North Carolina, where this hill-land reservoir offers numerous coves and creek arms for crappies to spawn in, surrounded by the pastoral beauty of two Virginia state parks. Extensive shallow-brush patterns exist here in spring. This is the place to catch 2- to 3-pound slabs on spinnerbaits during prespawn. That's right, spinnerbaits like the Blue Fox Big Crappie series or the Terminator Tiny T. The shallow bite begins in mid-March most years, as crappies move into submerged terrestrial bushes in 2 to 4 feet of water. Run-and-gun crappie fishing at its finest.

Guide: Topwater Guide Service, 804-374-8914. Contact: Clarksville Sports Center, 434-374-8934.


SAM RAYBURN, TEXAS
Big Sam covers over 114,000 acres of terrain, and the crappies average over 1-1/2 pounds these days. Lots of big-fish water for big fish to spread out. Crappies spawn here in early March to mid-March, and move up to stage in February. Look for big rolling flats in the 12- to 14-foot range covered with hydrilla. The crappies will be there.

Pitch light jigs in the 1/8- to 1/16-ounce range tipped with augertail plastics or Stanley Wedgetails and swim them across the tops of the weeds. It's one of the most entertaining ways to catch big crappies--precision tackle, light bites, and heavy action. Most years, lots of big slabs continue to relate to those weedbeds into June.

Crappies also stage near points, in standing timber during prespawn, where pitching or vertically fishing those same jigs can produce more crappies over a pound than any lake in North America right now, with a good shot at one over 3 pounds.

Guides: Bill Fondren, Tejas Guide Service, 409-698-3491; Ann's Tackle, 409-384-7685.


KENTUCKY LAKE, KENTUCKY-TENNESSEE
Stretching the length of a long valley between high rolling hills, Kentucky Lake straddles the Kentucky-Tennessee border. It's considered by some to be the finest crappie lake in the land right now. "For numbers of trophy fish, it's truly amazing," says In-Fisherman editor Steve Quinn. "I was last there in fall when conditions were worse than bad. We had rain every day, and the water was high and cold. We were faced with postfrontal conditions, and the fish were suspended and tricky to catch. Yet we still managed to hook quite a few over 2 pounds every day."

Spider rigging is the way to go in winter and early spring, as crappies are suspended. Try a different colored tube on every line, with each rod probing a different depth. Most of the fish will be 15 to 20 feet down, even in winter. In spring, crappies move into 2 feet of water to spawn. Look for shorelines with lots of wood--fallen trees and submerged brush.

Guides: Steve McAdams, 901-642-0360; Hook, Line & Sinker Guide Service, 270-388-0525.


LAKE OF THE WOODS, MINNESOTA-ONTARIO
Radiating out over half-a-million acres and encompassing more than 14,000 islands, the Woods is truly huge and intimidating to newcomers. Gordon Pyzer, guide and crappie enthusiast out of Kenora, Ontario, says "The fishing has been incredible the past two years, and having thousands of acres of prime crappie water to yourself in winter is quite common."

Spruce-studded granite cliffs that typify the Canadian Shield grace most of the shorelines. On water this big, solitude is a given. So are the slab crappies that bend the scales to 2 pounds or more. In winter, crappie minnows are the rule, but we've also done well with thin, tapering plastics like the Custom Jigs & Spins Wedgie in white or black, and small Jigging Rapalas tipped with maggots or minnow heads. Crappies will be in bays that lead to extensive shallow flats. In winter, they're down 38 to 42 feet most of the time. Use at least 4-pound line, and make sure the snow machine is tuned up and running well before venturing into the wilderness of the Woods.

Guide: Gordon Pyzer, 807-468-4898.


MILLWOOD RESERVOIR, ARKANSAS
"If you go to Millwood in April, bring braided line," says Troy Gibson of Mizmo Bait Company. "The crappies are that big. You can catch them on spinnerbaits that time of year. Crankbaits, too. It's an old river system that hasn't filled in or depleted over the years, as so many Arkansas reservoirs have. In winter, follow the river channels to find them. When they come up on the shallow flats into a foot or two of water in April, though, it's lights out. Big fish and lots of 'em."

A good day on Millwood is 30 to 40 fish apiece averaging over 1-1/2 pounds, with a great shot at a 3-pounder, possibly several that size. "I weighed in 6 crappies at a North American Crappie Association tournament on Millwood last year that weighed 12.44 pounds," Gibson says. "The person who won the tournament had 10 fish for over 22 pounds. The crappies in this lake are just unbelievable right now." The best pattern in April is to pitch tubes to the cypress knees rising out of the water. Beautiful, warm, productive fishing in early spring.

Guide: Zane Gray, 870-898-6655.


DEEP CREEK LAKE, MARYLAND
One of the biggest state-record bluegills to be caught in a long time is a real eye popper--a 3-pound 7-ounce specimen taken from Deep Creek Lake in 1998. It was caught by 9-year-old Sarah Brennemen with an old Zebco 33 on a True Temper rod, a real hardware store special.

Deep Creek Lake is known for producing brahma-bull 'gills, not numbers. It's relatively deep, cold, and infertile. Not perfect for panfish, but apparently right for growing world-class bulls with bolts sticking out of their necks. Sarah's was over 13 inches long. Many men have spent a lifetime rolling down old logging trails and axel-breaking two tracks hunting for trophy gills without ever catching one that weighed half as much as Sarah's. A lot of old timers out there hope she understands how truly special that fish was.

Winter into spring is a great time to be on Deep Creek. Big 'gills begin moving out of deeper water into shallow flats and bays. Look for dark-bottom bays that face south during March. Concentrate on the shallower, weedier upper end of the lake. Bluegills will find the fastest-warming micro environments they can in spring.

Contacts: County Chamber of Commerce, 301-387-4386.