Adam Johnson Outdoors • Reading Outdoors

The Anatomy of a Great Panfish Lake

By Tim Lesmeister

Think of your favorite panfish lake. The one with those bull bluegills and slab crappies. There's a reason this lake is so productive and it has everything to do with the characteristics of the lake.

While it's not always so, a good share of the time a great bluegill lake will be a marginal crappie lake, and vice-versa. There are certain characteristics that make a lake great for one species and this condition doesn't always bode well for the other fish.

Take those pothole lakes down in my home state in southern Minnesota. Almost too fertile in some cases. These lakes can produce loads of huge crappies, but bluegill numbers are seldom up to par.

An interesting phenomenon is that this situation also exists in the lakes in the northern section of the state. The lakes which consist of hard-bottomed, clear water basins.

The reason for this is bluegills love cover and need vegetation. Neither the pothole lakes or the lakes of the north harbor much in the way of vegetation. In some of the weedy bays in the northern lakes there are some monster bluegills, there just isn't many. The same is true of pothole lakes that are murky and don't grow much in the way of weeds. The bluegills just don't fare well there.

The crappies on the other hand are prone to suspending in open water and could care less about heavy vegetation. These fish do well in both regions, north and south.

So a weedy lake is going to be a prime spot for bluegills; right? Maybe, maybe not. If you are looking for big bluegills then some of the more productive lakes might not be up to your standard. In many weedy lakes that are fertile in nature there can be so many bluegills the entire population of this species is stunted. Thousands of six-to-a-pound fish make up the majority of the bluegills in that lake.

The better bluegill lakes have a high number of big bass and northern pike, the perfect bluegill predators. These lakes also have enough hard-bottomed areas for the bluegills to make their nests during the spawning period. Bluegills sweep the silt off of a shallow hard-bottomed area and deposit their eggs. On that spot one fish stays and protects the nest until the eggs hatch. In muck-bottomed lakes these spawning beds are non-existent and so are the bluegills.

Whenever you discover a lake that is productive for both bluegills and crappies you have a real gold mine. The reason these lakes can be so productive for both species is because they are diverse. Both lakes have multiple basins that give each species the conditions they need to thrive. Crappies like dark-bottomed weedy bays to spawn in, bluegills need some hard bottom. Crappies like some open-water to suspend in and bluegills like weed beds. The lakes are going to be a bit more fertile to support a solid forage base for the panfish, and there will be a predator fish population that will keep the smaller panfish numbers in check.

So how do you find these lakes? It requires some time and some willingness to ask questions and fish hard. A good panfish lake can be everyone's best kept secret, even the guys at the bait shop, but you still have to ask. In most cases the guys behind the counter filling your minnow bucket will steer you straight. They want your business.

Once on the water use techniques that will target big fish. Use bigger jigs and go deeper on the weedline for the bull bluegills. Spend some time searching open water for crappies. Get good at reading the sonar on your boat. People think the crappies disappear in the summertime. They're there. It's just nobody's looking for them.

One other thing to consider is that a lake can be hot one season and not the next. Crappies are cyclical in nature in many lakes and their numbers as well as size can vary dramatically from season to season.

Many of you probably know that bluegills and crappies are the most popular species for anglers all over the country. They're fun to catch, good to eat, and can be found in a lot of lakes, rivers and reservoirs. Understanding just a little bit about their nature can help you find the bigger ones that make chasing them worth your while.