One second, the bright orange Styrofoam float was sitting there, bobbing on the surface of the lake, having just been placed there by the first cast of the day by my oldest fishing partner and dear friend, Li’l Joe.
The next, it was gone, disappearing in a nanosecond without any forewarning.
Not even a “bloop” was heard.
Not even a wiggle was seen.
It just shot under the water with the speed of a bullet.
“Oh yeah, they’re here,” said Joe Watts of Canton as he lifted his 11-foot B’n’M jig pole into a high arc to set the hook. “Ooh, and it’s a good ’un too. Look at him go.”
The fish, still unseen under 3 feet of water, was darting hard to the right, then back to the left, but Watts was quick to pull it closer to the shoreline where we were standing.
“Get out of the bed before you spook them all,” Watts muttered to the fish, which apparently wasn’t satisfied with that proposition.
Then, my pal changed subjects: “Hey Bob, where’s your bobber?”
Hypnotized by Watts’ battle, I had lost track of my own gear. Indeed, my lime green cork was no longer visible, and my aging eyes couldn’t pick up the tiny strand of the micro-thin, 4-pound line. So I did what any self-respecting asleep-at-the-wheel bream fisherman would do and raised my pole high into the air until I felt the tug of something heavy.
Minutes later, Watts and I were comparing the two slab bluegills that completely covered our hands, starting from our wrists, past the meat at the base of our thumbs and hanging over our extended fingers.
They were the first two of 72 we put on ice that warm June morning on a 50-acre lake just north of Canton, almost in Watts’ backyard. We tossed back that many more that were smaller. The combined weight of the 72 we kept was an amazing 69 pounds.
Monster bream they were.
And we never stopped giggling every time our tiny corks shot under the water.
Understand this: Watts and I have caught double-digit sized bass on topwater lures, we’ve sight-fished and hooked 50-pound cobia and 30-pound reds, and we’ve both battled tuna and blue marlin in the Gulf, all standing side by side.
As exciting as all those moments were, we get the same thrill every single time our little bream floats get jerked under the water.
If it doesn’t do the same for you, then pity, pity, pity.
From the casting of the line, to the sinking of the cork, to the sizzling of the frying pan, to the crispy bite of the finished product at the table — nothing beats a hot, bream-fishing trip.
While most people think bream bedding activity is limited to April and May, that is simply not true. Watts and I have caught them all the way through to August and once in September — still on the beds.
June has always been the most-consistent month.
It’s all in the gear
While eating bluegill is the most-popular reason fishermen chase the little panfish — and Watts is a master at catching, cleaning and cooking — he’s in it for the pure joy of watching that cork disappear.
“It never gets old,” he said. “We do, but it doesn’t.”
To get the most out of the sport, Watts gears down to match the fight of the fish. His main weapon is an old, 11-foot version of the B’n’M Buck’s Jig Pole designed for crappie. His has the reel seat on the very end of the handle; he uses an ultra-light spinning reel made by Pflueger, spooled with line ranging from 4- to 8-pound test.
“I used to use only 4-pound, but as I have gotten older, I’ve had to go up in weight to see it,” he joked. “But it’s really all about the pole and the reel. The B’n’M gives me great flexibility and sensitivity. The sensitivity isn’t necessary for detecting a bite since we use bobbers, but it gives me more feel of the fight.
“The base-seated reel, with the length of the pole, allows for easy casting, even in a bit of wind. I bank-fish now more than I boat, especially for bream on the beds. Most of the people who live on our lake have gravel beds out to attract beds, and they have them where they can easily be reached from either the shoreline or a pier. This rig gives me the reach to hit all those beds without getting too close, and it’s light enough action to emphasize the fun. But there are some ol’ natural beds that are my favorites.”
Watts is a cricket man when it comes to bait.
“I only use worms in the fall and winter when the fish are deep,” he said. “Then, I change everything from the rod and reel to the bait.”
While I usually use a 11-foot outfit similar to Watts, I often opt for one that employs an 8-foot B’n’M spinning pole designed for crappie with a Browning ultra-light reel. It offers the same ease in casting while providing a lighter feel to increase the excitement. You just can’t cast quite as far as with the 11-foot rig.
Protect the bed
Watts is emphatic that a bream’s bedding area be disturbed as little as possible during the fishing.
“I’m fortunate in that I know the layout of all of the bream beds in my lake, whether they are man-made or natural,” he said. “That allows me to fish them from the outside edges to the inside, as well as knowing how far out to position my boat or how far away I should stay on the bank. That is very important on a lake like ours, because the water is a lot more clear than you’ll find at a reservoir, river, most farm ponds and any other kind of lake. You have to stay off at a distance, even to the point of keeping your shadow from reaching the bed.”
Watts is always careful to not spook the fish.
“I fish beds outside-in so that I can pick off the hungry fish on the edges before I start fishing the heart of the bed,” he said. “It’s important to get the fish out of the bed as soon as the fight starts. A little activity can excite the other fish, but too much can scare them. My first thought is to pull that fish out away from the bed, then relax and let him do what he’s got to do. Those first few seconds are the only time I put pressure on a fish.
“This is especially true in June and later months during the summer, because I’ve always found that the longer the males stay on the bed, the more picky and the more agitated they get. They’ve already been spawning in April and May, and if there are redear mixed with the bluegill, then some started in March.”
You can easily tell a difference in the male’s appearance beginning in June.
“You catch them on the bed in April or May and those males look big and pretty, unblemished all over,” Watts said. “By June, they begin to show the wear and tear of fanning beds, wooing females and fighting. They stress, and it shows. Their tails will start to look beat up, the back halves of their body will start to thin out and they may have little red sore splotches all over.
“But by June, they are also hungry as all get-out, so if you can get on a bed and put a bait in front of their face, you better believe they will eat. That’s why in June you start seeing those corks disappear rapidly. They usually go under as soon as it hits the water.”
Sniff out the fish
While Watts has the homefield advantage of his private, subdivision lake — and knows where most, if not all the beds are — guys like James Thomas of Jackson, who fish public waters, have become experts at sniffing out the beds.
Literally.
“My Daddy was the best bird dog there ever was for bream fish,” Thomas said. “That man could simply point his nose up in the air and point to the fish. I’d be driving the boat, and he’d be up front with his head bent back, going right to left, and eventually he’d wave his arms and start pointing in a direction for me to go.
“I’d get the smell a few moments later. I learned over the years to catch that natural organic smell, sort of sweet like watermelon rind and sour like decaying matter, all mixed together. When you get that aroma, you turn into the wind because that’s where it’s coming from.”
Biologists suggest that the smell is created by the release of pheromones by both males and females that act as a call to all other bream in the area. Bream spawn in mass, kind of like crappie and not at all like bass. The more the fish in one area, the higher the percentages are that all eggs will be in contact with milt.
“Well, that may be true, but you have to know that a dead fish can give off a similar smell,” Thomas said. “The smell of bedding bream is just sweeter, with more of the watermelon smell.”
If water, then bream
The great thing about bluegill and redear is that they swim in just about every fishable pond, lake, stream or river in Mississippi, no matter which part of the state you might fish.
Stocked farm ponds offer some of the best action, and finding access to those waters is best accomplished through networking your social circles.
Said Thomas: “My favorite three places are all ponds I found through members of my church. I asked around and was able to gain access to four or five lakes around the central Mississippi area and found these three to be the best.”
Some of Mississippi’s best panfish opportunities are lakes within the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks’ State Lakes system.
In south Mississippi, try Lake Perry at Beaumont, Lake Mike Connor near Collins and Prentiss Walker Lake near Mize.
In central Mississippi, try Lake Calling Panther near Crystal Springs, Claude Bennett Lake near Bay Springs and Tom Bailey Lake near Toomsuba.
In east Mississippi, don’t miss Neshoba County Lake near Philadelphia and Kemper County Lake near Dekalb.
In north Mississippi, there are two jewels: Lake Lamar Bruce near Tupelo and Tippah County Lake near Ripley.
Mississippi’s state parks also offer some outstanding fishing, namely Trace Lake State Park near Pontotoc, Lake Lincoln State Park near Wesson, Roosevelt State Park near Morton and Johnson State Park near Brooklyn.
In west Mississippi, a lot of panfish focus falls on oxbow lakes along the Mississippi River counties. The most popular are Eagle Lake and Chotard Lake, north of Vicksburg, and Lake Washington, south of Greenville.
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