Panfish are on fire!

[Norman89]

Been out to harts lake, ohop and tanawax lake over the last week and all the panfish are going crazy full stringers of perch blue gill and crappie a few bass and even a good size bullhead at ohop! Having a great time with the kids and friends filling the freezer even had a fish fry tonight with some friends here is last nights stringer and a full quart freezer bag of perch fillets!

[Fl0und3rz]

Way to go!  Brings back memories or floating crickets over spawning beds all day as a kid down south. 

[Norman89]

This year I am targeting them hard and 90% have been caught on micro crankbaits but a few were a traditional sliding bobbed and worm and some on a jig

[Fl0und3rz]

We used to use beetle spins to great effect, too.  Don't know if they still make those as I haven't targeted panfish in ages.  I need to pick it back up and get the boys onto some.

[lokidog]

Yum!  A suggestion though... try scaling some before fileting and fry with the skin on.  I think you will be pleasantly surprised at the sweetness that the skin adds.  I loved crappie and bluegill as a kid but as I got older and learned how to filet them, I did.  At some time, I realized they did not taste as good as they did.  Scaling them brought back that flavor from my memory.

[Norman89]

Oh ya  all crappie and bluegill and fillet skin on scaled that's my favorite!

[lokidog]

Oh ya  all crappie and bluegill and fillet skin on scaled that's my favorite!

   Perch not so much.

[Norman89]

I actually just found a new way to clean perch my brother taught me that makes life real easy he showed me to make an opening cut along the back one on each side of the dorsal and adipose fins, then a regular cut along The belly but all cuts not into the meat just through the skin gently. Then your standard fillet cut behind the gill plate and the four cuts all together allow you to pull off the skin on each side in a single piece then fillet and it works slick. Takes me about a minute to clean a perch this way and end up with two nice boneless skinless fillets every time

[Crunchy]

Good haul.

Freshwater top tasters
Walleye
Crappie
Yellow perch

[bearpaw]

great catch, good eating 

[Blacklab]

TMF! (To Much Fun) 
Been targeting Crappie this year at a local lake. Haven't found them yet, still looking. Yellow perch is mainly what I'm finding with no real size 4 & 5". Not really sure if their are any good numbers of Crappie anymore in this lake. It's just so close to home not to try. I will be hitting other lakes in the next couple weeks were I know their there. But still have to find them..lol 

[Norman89]

I have just been slow trolling the crank baits till I start hitting fish and work the pod till I get basically a circle around there location then troll through the middle of them a few times it has been working awesome so far last night caught my biggest crappie yet at 11 1/4" that's the one in the picture. Here are a couple solid 9"s from last weekend on ohop

[Sandberm]

We used to use beetle spins to great effect, too.  Don't know if they still make those as I haven't targeted panfish in ages.  I need to pick it back up and get the boys onto some.

Green Beetle Spin, one of my all time favorite lures.

[Fl0und3rz]

I still have some.  The little orange ones, too.  I think they had a black dot on them, and then there were the little white ones with the red dot.  I am going to have to check my soft plastics to see if they are still any good.

[hunt_fish]

This year I am targeting them hard and 90% have been caught on micro crankbaits but a few were a traditional sliding bobbed and worm and some on a jig

Saw a couple videos on YouTube of a guy who fishes those lakes. Looks like all he does is troll those cranks and does well.