Long rods lead to hot action on exciting, diminutive fish
Pound for pound, or more appropriately ounce for ounce, few fish can match the astounding strength and determination of a bull bluegill fighting far above its weight class. Bluegills make determined runs and swim in circles, turning their flattened bodies to the angler for leverage.
In Louisiana, anglers might catch several bream species, variously called sunfish, perch, panfish and other names. However, most people concentrate on catching bluegills and redear sunfish. As temperatures warm in the spring, bream start spawning and fly fishermen find no better time to land a load of big panfish than during the spawning season.
“Two factors determine when fish spawn, water temperature and the photo period, or the amount of daylight,” said Josh Eubanks, a Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries biologist in Lake Charles. “When the photo period gets about 10 hours of daylight, that’s the ramp up to spawning season. When that water temperature gets right, those factors come together.”
The spawning seasons
Also called chinquapins, redears spawn a bit earlier than bluegills. Redears might start spawning as early as March. They spawn again in the fall. Redears build nests in water less than 3 feet deep on sandy bottoms around thick vegetation or woody objects. In a good spawning area, anglers might fill a livewell quickly.
“Old-timers used to say when the red clover is blooming the chinquapin are biting,” Eubanks quipped. “For most of Louisiana, redears begin spawning in late March when water temperature gets between 65 and 70 degrees. The peak would be mid-April to early May in North Louisiana and late March to mid-April in South Louisiana, depending upon weather patterns.”
Also called shellcrackers, redears relish eating snails. They typically feed close to the bottom, devouring snails, crawfish, freshwater shrimp, insect larvae and other morsels.
“Redears are not surface feeders,” Eubanks said. “They are specialists at eating freshwater mollusks and crustaceans. To feed, they face the bottom and ram into it to cause a disturbance. Then, they pick out whatever they find there.”
Bluegills start spawning when water temperatures reach about 75 to 80 degrees, usually in April or May. Spawning peaks from mid-May to mid-June, a little earlier in South Louisiana. Highly prolific, bluegills spawn about every 28 days through early October, depending on the weather.
Male bluegills hollow out shallow depressions in sandy or gravel bottoms in 2 to 3 feet of water. Look for beds on the downstream side of sandbars and major obstructions, around weed patches or woody structure. Bream habitually return to the same bedding areas each year.
“When bream are on the beds, they are much easier to catch with the males guarding the nests,” Eubanks said. “They will attack anything that comes in their vicinity, whether they are hungry or not.”
Bream beds
A good bluegill bedding area can keep producing fish for months. Look for dark depressions in the shallows. People can also locate bream beds with their noses. Spawning bream give off a scent like fresh watermelon. Males tend to give off a sweeter smell, while spawning females exude a strong, more pungent odor.
When on the beds, bream vigorously defend their nests and attack anything that might threaten their offspring or looks edible. Bluegills and other panfish eat almost anything they can fit into their tiny mouths, including minnows, worms, grubs and crustaceans, but they especially love insects. When feeding near the surface, their little mouths make distinctive snapping noises. Quite audible for considerable distances, these snaps allow astute bream busters to zero in on surface-feeding panfish.
For tempting surface feeders, throw floating plastic, cork or foam “popping bugs.” These “bugs” adorned with feathers and rubber “legs” come in many color combinations and can provide explosive topwater action. Foam crickets, grasshoppers, tiny frogs, spiders or other small creatures also work.
Pay attention to what fish want to eat at that time. For instance, if blue dragonflies swarm the area, try blue poppers. When fish feed upon minnows, throw a white bug with long tail feathers.
Move quietly along a shoreline, tossing poppers next to stumps, cypress knees, tree trunks, lily pads, weedy edges or the shoreline. Old duck blinds, boat docks, bulkheads and piers also provide excellent places to catch bream.
Let the popper rest on the surface until the ripples fade. Then give it a small twitch or pop. Pause again for several seconds. In a good bedding area, cast the bug beyond the nest if possible. Slowly work it over the bed. Sometimes, fish want dynamic popping action, but frequently hit bugs sitting still on the surface. Often, just a slow, steady pull across the surface provokes strikes.
What to use
In tidal waters or other times when water levels drop, the mouths of small drains create outstanding places to catch bream on the fly. Falling water pulls insects and other creatures from their hiding places. Toss a temptation upstream and let it drift downstream naturally. Occasionally, give it a little pop or twitch.
When aggressively feeding or defending their nests, bluegills attempt to obliterate poppers. At other times, they timidly taste the morsel. A bug simply vanishes without a ripple.
Regularly, bigger bluegills and most redears stay in slightly deeper water. Shellcrackers hit floating temptations, but prefer to feed near the bottom. For fishing a little deeper, use sinking temptations pulled through the water in short spurts. Pause periodically so the enticement hovers or slowly sinks.
“People occasionally catch redears on fly tackle, but they don’t hit poppers as much as bluegills,” Eubanks said. “When fishing for redears, people need to specifically target them with subsurface fly tackle like scud patterns and nymphs that mimic freshwater shrimp, baby crawfish and insect larvae. When fishing deeper for redears, some people use strike indicators.”
A floating popper could serve as a strike indicator with a drop rig. Tie line to the popper hook. Tip it with a midge fly or scud to fish two different depths simultaneously. Anglers might catch both redears and bluegills at the same time.
A mayfly hatch
In the spring, bream commonly bite all day or late into the morning. Gregarious little creatures, hundreds of fat bluegills might congregate in a small area. If bream stop biting, change lure colors or types. After exhausting all available color combinations, leave the area for a few hours and return later for more action.
Nothing puts every bream species into a feeding frenzy quicker than a mayfly hatch. Hatches might occur in any freshwater systems from late March through early November. After spending months underwater as nymphs, adult mayflies emerge en masse to mate and die. Looking something like oversize mosquitoes, mayflies cling to low overhanging bushes and shrubs to dry their wings. When flies inevitably fall into the water, ravenous fish rush in to gorge themselves like piranhas devouring a bleeding capybara.
“A mayfly hatch can be a bonanza, but when there’s so much food available for those fish to eat, it gets hard to get them to hit any artificial temptations,” Eubanks said. “They are already stuffed.”
Louisiana anglers might catch other bream species besides bluegills and redears, such as warmouth. Also called goggle-eye, a warmouth looks like a cross between a bluegill and a bass. Anglers could also catch other lesser-known species.
“People target different bream species during different times of the year,” Eubanks said. “Besides bluegills, redear sunfish and warmouth, people might also catch redspotted sunfish, redbreast sunfish, longear sunfish, orangespotted sunfish and some other species, especially when fishing some of the more sandy creeks and rivers.”
Where to fish
Bluegills and other bream species occupy practically every freshwater system across the south. They prefer quiet waters with considerable weedy or stumpy cover. Old roadbeds at the bottom of reservoirs make superb places for bream to spawn.
“Historically, Caney Lake is a great place to target large redears with fly tackle,” Eubanks said. “Kincaid Lake, Lake Vernon and Lake Bistineau are other good waters. For big bluegills, it’s hard to beat Toledo Bend and the Saline-Larto complex. Bussey Brake near Bastrop and Millers Lake near Ville Platte are other great areas. The upper Atchafalaya Basin historically has been a really good bluegill fishery.”
For river enthusiasts, Cane River can produce some giant bluegills. The backwaters off the Red and Ouachita rivers hold good bream. Many Mississippi River oxbows, such as Concordia, St. John and Bruin, excel for bream fishing. Other good rivers include the Sabine, Calcasieu, Pearl, Tickfaw and Tchefuncte.
“Many of those rivers are great for floating in a kayak or canoe,” Eubanks said. “That’s a really fun way to catch bream. In those streams, people can catch some really nice longear sunfish that get very colorful. They almost look like a tropical fish.”
