Thread: Hardbaits for Gills ?

I used a beetlespin about an hour last meet up , IIRC I caught 6-7 gills while my Bud got ahead of with about double that amount . But mine , overall , were , bigger.
Last year , I cranked a deep diving Ultralight Rapala around the boat ramp and lost two , at $7 a piece.
That’s why I’m interested in a floater/diver .
Hard to beat jigs .
I find that if I swim them , I don’t get hung up as much.
Hard to beat a jig . You can fish them so many ways.
And retrieve does matter .
Twitched one day for an hour with nothing but short nippers. Started a pull and drop retrieve and started picking up fish in the same water I’d just fished .

#1 Panfish poppers behind small indicator/float-no comparison for topwater bite.#2 small panfish spinners/spoons dressed w/small plastics/other dressings.#3 Deepwater bite, panfish spoons fished SLOW,SLOW,SLOWER!#4 All panfish crankbaits, fun and effective under certain conditions.This has worked for me in the past.

I tried a couple of micro crankbaits today . Mainly to see if the floated and wiggled on retrieve. It was good in both respects.m
I had several smack at them but no hookups . Probably too small to get hooked although the trebles are tiny .

As far as fishing around brush and other cover, the OSP Tiny Blitz is a square/coffin bill 0-3 foot diver so it should deflect off structure quite well. Spoons with single hooks instead of trebles are way safer around cover as well.

Keep in mind of all these things I've suggested, I throw a .8gr jighead with a 1.5" plastic about 90% of the time, go up to 1.5gr about 9% of the time, and use all that other stuff the other about 1% combined. It's just my trout stuff that works ok for panfish when I'm in the mood to be goofy.

When I think of hard baits, Beetle Spin isn't one of them. Granted the spinner and wire is hard but the main bait is a soft plastic. Going back to what lures are considered hard baits, I think more in terms of action - especially actions not associated with soft plastics. Take floating minnow-types like the Rapala. When twitched with the rod tip, it darts back and forth and then pauses at the surface. The soft plastic stick with a hard tapered tail shown below has the same action when rod tip-twitched the same way.

The bulb-butt lure below it has the same action as a Zara Spook when used with a light jig: a zig-zag action but at any depth. Neither lure has an action tail same for a taper tail stick wacky rigged shown below. The plastic used was hard grade and the tips twitch with rod tip twitches. So it's more a hard lure than soft.

A grub with curl tail cut off, does excellent and I've caught pannies using it on a B Spin or on a light jig. The action is totally unique and sunfish slam it!

I have a Risto Rap that I will fish for all species when the weather cools below 92 degrees. Rebel and Rapala are at the top of the list for surface minnow-types, but hard/ soft plastics are close behind.

Maybe closer to what requested. Yozuri, Rapala, Strike King, Rebel, Hula-Popper, Torpedos. These are all listed as panfish sizes and most come in float or sink versions. Nice to mess with if you just want to try different baits, not for catching lots of fish. As mentioned, hard to beat jigs for that. Also a big fan of small single hooks on all panfish lures. Good Luck!

Good to hear from moon. Hope he is feeling Ok. Always enjoy hearing how western PA is fishing.
Bob

I like small top waters but don't throw them often because of treble hooks and my fear of burying one of the extra hooks in my hand. Hooked a goggle eye on a small rapala that managed to get 5 hooks in him, two in the mouth and all three hooks in the throat area. Took a couple minutes to get them all out but no bleeding and it swam away fast. Need to replace the trebles with single hooks on some. Also the little blades under the belly look promising as well and will try that on a couple. Another option is a single hook on the front of the bait with a dropper line tied to the back with a small jig or fly tied to that. Lot's of options to try.