My unlce and I have finally figured out a pattern that has been very successful for cracker fishing. Obviously fishing on bottom and using live bait, wigglers or crawlers is a must, but there's much more to our pattern than that.

I'm not here to tell our secrets though, I've been thinking about another reason they're hard to catch...they don't show up on a depth finder. The fish you see on a depth finder are suspended fish, like bluegill or crappie. Redears are on the very bottom and generally don't show up on fish finders, making them very elusive to the average panfisherman.

The lakes we fish around Southern Indiana, are for the most full of redears. But very seldom do I see fisherman with any good number of redears in their coolers, maybe two or three they caught by accident. A hint for good redear fishing...look at the terrain.