In light of my mic difficulties yesterday, I'm opting for a written post this time around instead of a video. No certainties for the future, though.
This time of year in Minnesota, the focus is all on the crappies for the professional fishing world. Crappies are fun to catch, delicious, and can even be challenging to find sometimes. However, I think that this is also the perfect season to get back to an old childhood friend of almost every fisherman - the sunfish.
When I say "sunfish", I am referring to the sunfish family. To most Minnesotans, these small fish are known simply as "sunnies". However, this term is actually very broad. There are many species of fish in the sunfish family, one of the largest being the largemouth bass. However, the most readily thought of sunfish include bluegills, redears, and pumpkinseeds. Personally I love green sunfish for their pretty blue stripes around their mouths. Other true sunfish (that is, sunfish excluding bass and crappies) include redbreast, banded, mud, bluespotted, and warmouth, not to mention hybrids. Not all of these fish live in Minnesota.
The most commonly seen and caught of these is the bluegill. It's perhaps the most popular of the "sunnies" and sports a characteristic blue tint around the gill region. They prefer water temps in the mid 70's and spawn when water temps reach the high 60s.
Redears are the largest of the true sunfish and is usually found a little deeper than bluegills and pumpkinseeds. These guys stay closer to the bottom and can be a little trickier to catch than others.
Pumpkinseeds are the shallowest of these three sunnies. They have smaller mouths as well but are fairly aggressive.
But, something to remember, all sunnies are relatively aggressive and fight well for their size. Also, they're easy to catch and pretty darn tasty. A simple worm and bobber is plenty to catch a meal off a dock.
For flies, anything small will work, but I like using a woolly bugger with a bit of sparkle in it.
Tight lines,
Bradley
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