In-Fisherman ranks a “trophy” sunfish as 11 inches in the Midwest. Its no wonder there’s very few large <strong class=”ido-tag-strong”>panfish left. The amount of fish being harvested is completely out of control. That is obvious based solely on the photos and posts just in this thread.
Sadly, we didn’t have much choice other than to keep the fish we caught these past few days. We were fishing in 30+ feet of water.
So far this year Clam Maki plastics have been good. Specifically the maki, jamei and mino. Pink or red is always my go to. Another good one is the Slugbug from Northland but sadly they discontinued that. So they are hard to find
Hoping someday I can go up to Minnesota and fish for some gills and crappies. I’d like to go to some Northern WI waters too. Being from Northwestern IL there aren’t too many places to fish other than backwaters and private lakes. I caught that gill out of a private lake. That lake is by far the best panfish lake we have around here. Average 8.5-9″ gills and 11-12″ Crappies. Your guaranteed a 10″ gill every ice season. You’ll usually catch a couples 10s during first ice. I’ve caught two 14″ crappies the past two years. Last winter some guys caught 18-19″ crappies on a kastmaster spoon! I saw the pictures. Hoping I’ll get lucky and snag one this winter. It’s crazy because its only a 420 acre lake. However it’s the second biggest lake in our area.
Well for gills I usually go with a gill getter(horizontal) or a teeter-totter(horizontal) for crappies just a simple jig head with and impulse plastic. I never seem to catch anything with vertical jigs.
