Most Natural Presentation for Deep Water Panfish

[ross91690]

Looking to divulge into the 15-20 foot depths a little more for some bigger panfish. Artificial bait guy here. What are your best deep water presentations for the given scenario?

[deathb4disco]

I usually don't fish that deep but, when I do, I go with a slip float or just jig/cast vertically. I think crappiepappy has an article about "vertical casting". Check it out.

[CrappiePappy]

You might try it this way : Vertical Casting

What I've mostly done is cast out & let the bait swing back to me (no reeling in until line is straight down) ... and I've had good success doing that when fishing with crickets for Bluegill. If I'm right over top of them, a 1/16oz jig tipped with a piece of nightcrawler does good. The hardest part of fishing that way, is getting the bait down to the bigger ones fast enough so that the smaller ones don't get a shot at it !!

A popeye jig tipped with a waxworm ... split shot up the line about 6-8" ... slipfloat small enough to just barely hold this rig up ---- is killer when you find out the depth that the "bulls" are holding.

Even so ... I have had instances where I've caught some dinks below the 20' depth ... it happens !!

But ... I rarely fish for "panfish" (Bluegill/Shellcracker/Longear/etc) with JUST artificials. Short of casting small cranks or Roadrunners along rocky/bluff banks for Warmouth ... I generally only "accidently" catch panfish of any great size with just artificials.

... cp