A lot of people don’t think about panfish as the “other” fish species in Michigan waters. We tend to thinks about pike and bass, which is big fish. However, there are many other species in our waters, and those panfish play an important role in keeping a healthy freshwater ecosystem.
Panfish are also the species with which most kids gets their start fishing, and those species will provide continuous action throughout the spring, summer and early fall months. Even if the bigger predators aren’t biting, you’ll still be able to stay on the water knowing you’re going to have some fish catchs. Knowing what kind of species you are trying to target makes all the differance.
How do you present? What bait do you throw? Where do you throw it?
A lot of anglers consider panfish to be easy pickings for larger game. That’s wrong; however. Each panfish species has specific habitat preferences and behavior patterns that can make or break your day.
Some school tightly near structure or vegetation, while others remains suspended in open water. Some actively chase moving lures, whereas others needs a dead-sticking offering. Knowing these differences can make your trip better then worse.
It also keeps you from over-harvesting local populations by fishing the proper fish during the proper times. These are panfish. Great Lakes panfish include bluegill.
Top Michigan Panfish Species To Target
1. Bluegill
Just about any river or lake in Michigan has bluegill. In fact, bluegill are the quintessential panfish of the Great Lakes region. They’re plentiful, easy to forgive, and great for beginners.
Bluegill hang around rock drop-offs, submerged vegetation, and timber. On warm days, look to shallow coves for ‘em. As the water cools, you’ll find them suspended over deeper channels.
While bluegills don’t often exceed a pound, their vibrant color schemes and lively battles makes them fun to catch. To catch bluegill, you have to match the forage. That means they eat larvae and insects, so mealworms, nightcrawlers and other natural baits works great.
When they’re aggressively feeding, small jigs with red or chartreuse feathers can gets bit too. Because bluegill are a visual hunter, a slow presentation generally outperforms frenetic retrieves. Bluegill tend to follow schools of minnows, so fishing around schools of baitfish put you in an ideal position.
2. Crappie
Another sought-after fish by Michigan fishermen is the crappie; these are big mouthed but thin bodied fish. Two types of crappie is found in Michigan waters: the black and the white. The white crappie dominates the southern lakes, while the black crappie dominate the north.
Crappie love structure and will hang out on bridge pilings and around sunken trees. They have irregular feeding patterns, which can make them more challenging to locate then the predictable bluegill. Where do crappie go?
Crappie stay in transition areas; they respond to both temperature and water clarity changes. In the springtime, spawning moves them to very shallow depths where they will establish their bed. This experience would of provide some great crappie fishing!
Try trolling with vertical jigs or minnows to cover water and locate scattered schools. When fish is holding tight to cover, jigging vertically around structure is another good bet. Be prepared.
Crappie are sometimes picky. It may take changing colors and slowing down your presentation before getting a bite.
3. Yellow Perch
A favorite of anglers for both eating and catching, yellow perch have sweet tasting meat and unique vertical striping.
Although other varieties exist here in Michigan, the most common is the yellow perch. They can be caught in rivers as well as lakes all over the state, but tend to favor sandy bottom areas with vegetation present. Often they will be positioned on the edge of weeds.
These are schooling fish, which means finding one perch should lead you to others around it. A perk is that these guys is aggressive eaters, particularly in the fall and spring. Move your lure and they will eagerly come chasing after it.
Perch are a popular fish and are generally fished with very small spoons or minnows typically fished just off the bottom. They also suspends at times, so knowing where they might suspend is key when fishing for perch. Generally perch is a good all-year fish, but they are really active around transition periods of the season.
And perch serve as an essential forage fish for bigger predator fish. Knowing how to handle limit catches is necessary to maintaining healthy perch numbers. And lastly, perch have that vibrant yellow color and just make it fun to catch!
4. Sunfish
Adding some spice to the panfish mix is sunfish such as redear and pumpkinseed. The redears love hard bottom and eat mollusks, so catching them takes special tactics. While redear can be found around vegetation, pumpkinseeds are more likely to be in the weeds.
Pumpkinseed are colorful and aggressive, while redear prefer hard bottoms and feed on mollusks. Casual anglers frequently overlook these species, but they offer great fishing when you’re up for the challenge. They live in much of the same water as bluegill, although they’ll tend to hold in different areas throughout a given body of water.
To target sunfish, you have to be flexible, as they feed differently depending on where you find them and what type they are. For example, redear can sometimes be caught better by bottom fishing with a natural bait. Pumpkinseeds can eats small cranks around vegetation.
Knowing the different species of sunfish helps you tailor your fishing style. They can be more forgiving than bluegill in certain situations, making it easier for angler. Adding these fish to your list of things to target diversifies your experience and connects you to the diversity within Michigan’s waterways.
But all of those different panfish species makes for a great way to get more involved in enjoying Michigan’s natural resources. They each present different challenges and help anglers work on improving their skills. And there is something about that subtle crappie bite or the golden flash of a big bluegill that makes this an angling memory maker.
The next time you hit the water, think outside the box (beyond just the typical suspects), and give one (or several) of these other fish a try. It may be the little guys who gives you the most smiles.