The air hummed with the drone of cicadas. A slight breeze waffled the surface. The depthfinder revealed activity at 60 feet. The rig walked over rocks in a broken, tapping litany. An aggressive tap. A quick hookset. The fish was on the surface in seconds, leaping.

Salmon? Trout? Not in this lake, which seems to have nothing but smallmouths and bluegills in it. And in a lake with no pike, bull bluegills use deep springs in summer, even down to 60 feet. Not common, but not impossible. Some panfish go deep every summer. Maybe not that deep, but it happens almost everywhere.

Crappies and bluegills spawn as water temperatures approach 70°F, so they remain shallow until then. As they disperse into summer patterns, some remain in shallow slop wherever oxygen and shade are plentiful. Some remain on deep weedlines, and some cruise open water feeding on drifting veils of plankton, or on the pelagic minnows that follow this nomadic food chain. Open-water patterns tend to be in the top 15 feet of the water column, but some panfish go deeper yet and relate to structure.

In clear water, weedlines sometimes extend down to depths of 18 feet or more. Some bluegills and crappies (usually big ones, because they receive less pressure all summer) go even deeper, to rockpiles, humps, ridges, and saddles that may top out anywhere from 18 to 35 feet down, sometimes deeper. Hard bottom with nearby transitions to soft bottom key this pattern.

In-Fisherman put a spotlight on these deeper panfish over a quarter century ago, but despite repeated reminders to anglers, deep summer panfish remain fairly neglected. Which is why, of all the panfish following all the patterns in any given lake, deep panfish tend to be the biggest on average.

Once finished spawning, bluegills go as deep or deeper than crappies, if they can find a niche down there. That niche would have to include more than food. Oxygen is nice to have, too, and it’s not available below the thermocline in most natural lakes. The thermocline, a product of summer, is a distinct boundary between warm upper layers and the colder layers of water below. Reservoirs, the Great Lakes, and deep, geologically young lakes tend to have dissolved oxygen below the thermocline all year.

A lack of big predators creates another draw. If oxygen is high in the deep layers of a lake with no pike or muskies, bluegills are not afraid to use deep structure if they can find food down there. But that kind of anomaly isn’t the only thing that draws panfish deep, and “deep” is relative. Humps that top out at 20 to 25 feet are deep, compared to most panfish scenarios.

It is not uncommon for panfish to find deep springs in early summer, but it’s most common to find them making their way deep at some point in August or September all around the country. Key spots are offshore in the main lake, and the more isolated the better. Deep panfish are structure-oriented, so the tactics of choice remain backtrolling and drifting with rigs, or vertical-jigging. But a lot has happened in a quarter century. Tackle has changed, electronics have evolved, and methods have been refined.

Deep Rigging

On large structures like humps and sunken islands, panfish can be scattered. Not always, but the odds-on approach to begin with would be drifting or backtrolling with a rig. Not only will rigging cover more area laterally, but vertically as well. While the most active panfish tend to use the top of a piece of structure, groups can be biting somewhere around the base or even along the sides.

When lakes have a series of large humps to cover and you have no clue which one is best or how panfish are relating to them, run from one to the next and troll with a modern three-way rig, which employs 4- to 8-pound braided line. Braids are thinner than mono and cut the water better, so the rig stays near bottom on a shorter line with less weight.

Use a 3-way swivel or a bottom bouncer to create some space between the swivel and bottom. If the bottom is rocky, use a slinky (parachute cord with buckshot inside, heat-sealed at both ends). If the bottom is soft, use a bell sinker or pencil lead. Use a 3- to 5-foot, 4- to 6-pound fluorocarbon leader and tie on a small crankbait, like an FO3 Rapala or a Yo-Zuri Snap Bean.

This efficient rig generally will not catch numbers, but it will locate fish fast. Properly tuned, most of these small baits can tolerate speeds between 2 and 3 mph. And before long you have some idea about how scattered or concentrated the fish are, so you can determine which method to try next.

One way to cover the top and the base of a structure while searching is to drift with slipfloats. When winds are lighter than 15 mph and waves are small, slipfloats cover an area up to 70 feet wide.

Today we have a greater variety of slipfloats to choose from, and one of my favorites for deep panfish is the Cast Away Bobber. Because the bait has to get deep in a hurry and stay deep while the boat moves, the right slipfloat holds a good deal of weight; has a low enough profile to avoid blowing along like a paper cup; stands off the water enough to catch some wind and keep up with the boat; allows line to pass easily through the stem; and remains slim enough for light biters to pull under.

Cast Away Bobbers have a body made with some kind of indestructible foam (the owners drove over one with a truck several times to prove their point) that holds up more weight per surface inch than any other bobber. The stem is topped with a metal grommet for easy line passage. It has a low profile, but the body sits in the surface film, unlike a waggler-style float (which can also be a slipfloat, and remains a great choice when fish are concentrated on small spots).

Place a line of marker buoys along the lip of the break on an offshore hump and position the boat upwind. Put a string of small split shot on the line about 2 feet above a hook or small jig until the float stands with the body half-submerged. Say the hump tops off at 17 feet and its base is 22 feet. One angler in the boat sets the float stop 161⁄2 to 15 feet above the hook and pitches inside the markers, while a second angler sets the stop 21 feet above the hook and pitches outside. Then drift, tweaking your speed and direction with the bowmount trolling motor.

If panfish are scattered and pegged to bottom at a certain depth level, go with a classic Lindy rig and a leech (bluegills) or a minnow (crappies). Then slowly backtroll, keeping an eye on the depthfinder to maintain the bait in the right zone. I like to use a small leader float like the Beau Mac Cheater or Worden’s Lil’ Corky in most cases. If panfish are concentrated on a knob, high point, or at either end of the structure, jigging takes over.