If you prefer artificial lures, a small beetle spin can be just as effective as live bait. Time is at hand to test your tackle on some bedding bluegill or redear sunfish. Start casting to the outer edges of the bream bed, and then work your way into the heart of the spawning area. Heres a look at the four best lures for spawning bass and how to present the baits to trick bedding fish. Bedding time for bream in freshwater fishing liveabout. Its the start of the shellcracker season the leading edge, anyway, as the first small groups of. I have always had good luck with 1 to 1 12 inch crawfish and with artificials that looked the same. Shellcracker, or redear sunfish, are the biggest of the beam, with the world record a 4 pound ounce monster caught in florida in 1986. Grant olguin, cofounder of black dog bait company, relayed to us a story of when they first fished the shellcracker on the waters of the california delta. Last phase of bedding comming this week, big shell crackers and lots of them being caught at lake panasoffkee, fl. While those blissful eight hours in dreamland may seem to fly by most nights, they constitute a significant chunk of your life. You can catch a limit of 50fish per person as only shellcrackers, only bluegills or a mix of.
Now is the time to strike a trot to the lake and wet a hook for these babies. Redear sunfish to biologists, or chinquapin to louisiana anglers, these feisty fish typically favor. We get word from black dog bait company that they are working on a billed version of this bait that can be retrieved slow or very fast and will probably prove even more deadly than the original sinking version. Get into a bunch of these fish, where you are getting virtually. Theyre especially useful when a greater firing distance is desired as they will travel 200 feet or more before exploding.
Bream is a local term throughout the southeast that includes a variety of deepbodied panfish belonging to the sunfish family. Grab a shellcracker g2 today and see what the black dog bait can do for you. Bird bangers are launched in the same manner as screamers, the 15mm bird banger travels 100 150 feet down range before exploding. The best baits to use when fishing for shellcracker bream. My second choice is a 64 to 32 ounce hair jig tipped with a wax worm. Your bluegill or crappie fishing trip will be done in the comfort and safety of our fully rigged bass boat. Shellcrackers will often nest a month prior to bluegills. If you are not prone to flyfishing, flip or cast live baits into the bed. The most common of these are bluegill, redear sunfish shellcracker, redbreast sunfish, spotted sunfish stumpknocker and warmouth. Georgia lake seminole and worldrecord shellcrackers caught. Shellcracker fishing tips sheelcracker fishing florida. I like to watch the line and i want it to make it to the bottom. Norpro heavy duty nut lobster seafood shell shellfish crab cracker 6. They also eat other food like insects, worms, and crawfish, but feed on the bottom.
Find the perfect mix of activities, attractions when i find a bass on bed i cast it well past the bed and work the bait up to it slow. Although there are similarities between the two, shellcracker can be peculiar as to their bait choices. Each time i caught a fish, i would work it down and away from the rest of the bedding fish and release them several yards away from the area as well. For example, the black walnut cracker makes it easy to crack the nut open while keeping your fingers safe and clean. These big mean pan fish do tend to spawn slightly deeper than the regular blue gills. This shark bedding is positively brimming with every kind of shark imaginable. Some big spring bream are getting ready for bedding and are ready for some fast action. So, i hook my worm in the middle, swing it into the bedding bluegills and let it float to the. Shellcracker fishing during the midsummer months after the first shellcracker spawning rush has diminished. When the larger fish are a little bit away from shore, in. Grab a shellcracker g2 today and see what the black dog baits can do for you. Although we caught only a few fish on that trip since it was too early, it did bring back memories of how much fun bream fishing can be. A slip bobber a small live bait hook and some worms from a local tackle shop. I hope you enjoyed the video, please leave a like if you did.
Naff fishing articles page naff home page naff message board. Though a classic bobberandbait will catch plenty of bluegills, a slightly more specialized rig helps when shellcrackers are in the area. Crappie, blue gill and shell crackers are holding close also. I like to catch plenty of fish that fight hard, test my tackle and my angling skills and taste delicious when i eat them. The shellcracker g2 is designed to create a wake on the surface of the water during the retrieve. So when is the spawning season, where do they spawn, and what is the best bait to use for catching them. Requires completion of a wildlife control statement. The guys at fishing sent me some of their superior finesse jigs and plastics that they released. Florida shellcracker fishing spawning bluegills mwoutdoors.
The bedding areas usually have thick cover, such as water lilies lily pads and water hyacinths. The occupants will be smelling the air and staring intently at the water for some sort of sign. They like hard bottoms with a mixture of sand, decayed organic matter, and the roots of cypress trees. Once is probably good enough, but i usually put the hook through one end of the worm twice. When the larger fish are bedding and close to shore i use the cane pole.
I primarily bass fish, but i always have a light action rod with 4pound test in the rod locker and this time of year i get pretty serious about bluegill fishing. Locating bluegill and shellcracker when they are not on bed. We have a lot of submerged vegetation and quite a few shell beds in 6 to 8feet deep water, which is ideal habitat for shellcrackers. Spend the whole time running away from catfish to find some bream. What is your favorite live bait and artificial bait for them. A fly rod and some big shell crackers a whole lot of fun. The dark blue sham features a shark head on the front, with a tail that wraps around to the back. The best bait is freshwater shrimp, which we show how to catch in the video can be purchased as well. Id have to agree on the post of using lousiana pinks man them big ole crackers just cant. That shows the split shot is just kissing the bottom and kicking up a little silt as the bait eases along behind it. We have been catching all three working 116 and 332 oz.
Worms and crickets can be purchased at the local marina or bait shops. Its superior design and proven performance on the water sets this bait apart from other wake baits. Yes on beds and clear water in spring they are deadly. Each day, you spend about as much time in your bed as you do at your job. It was in the latter part of the day, maybe an hour or two from dusk. The best shell cracker fishing i can remember was along the rip rap at water front. A fly rod is also a great way to catch bedding bream. Adjust the float depth so the float is leaning at a 45degree angle.
This is the area that had the spawners, and they were easy to spot with cheapopolaroids. The quilt features a dark blue base with plenty of appliqued oceanthemed accents. Jigs of different sizes and colors are crucial at different times of the years. Speaking of shell crackers, this can be some of the greatest fishing there is. For live bait anglers, this is a good time to put on a nice fat worm and cast it into the transition water where the biggest bream are holding. He mainly sticks with some type of live bait, but he does admit to experimenting with some hair jigs dunked in worm scent. Redear sunfish, also known as shell crackers, tend to be a little larger than other bream. Bream fishing is one of my favorite fishing pastimes. The black dog small shell cracker g2 is nice as well and a little bit cheaper. A bed of shellcrackers is a great day of fishing and an even better. Even the most jaded angler still finds a spark of excitement when a fat bluegill, shellcracker, redbreast, green sunfish or any other pintsized member of the clan latches onto a bait or lure presented on a willowy cane pole or ultralight spinning rig.
The little white grub is a tasty delight but sometimes the fish hit the bait just to. Jerry sloan september 8, 2011 lake panasoffkee freshwater fishing report. Here, the shell crackers are found close to the edges, in shallow water generaly less than 4, during the bedding time, which here, runs from the full moon in march, thru june. Im always on the lookout for new ways or lures to catch fish, and crappie, bluegill and other panfish are no exception. A 5weight outfit and a handful of small popping bugs and sponge spiders are all you need.
Nut crackers allow you to extract the nut meat from the tough hulls of a nut. Product nonslip handle almond pecan crab plier clamp hand nut cracker sheller. Live bait, including both crickets and worms, is very popular, but small spinners such as beetle spins, mepps spinners and small roostertails are also very good for both a variety of bream species as well as redbreast. Lake eufaula, alabama alabama bass trail tournament series. As the winter comes to a close and the days start getting longer, most anglers start getting. Good baits include worms, crickets and freshwater shrimp lightly weighted for a bottom presentation. Your guide will have everything you will need, from the poles to the tackle.
I spend a lot of my lunch breaks fishing a small storm drain adjacent to a wooden dock behind my house, but the usual bass and bluegill targets took a backseat to the unexpected appearance of bedding shellcracker. We would anchor the boat, put a gob of red wigglers on the hook and cast out about six different outfits, put them in rod. Folks today, i explain ways you can locate bluegill and shellcracker when they are not bedding. These pugnacious fish typically spawn in deeper water averaging 7 to 10 feet deep. Eta on the billcracker is the last quarter of 2008.
Florida has more than 7,700 named lakes and ponds and over 10,000 miles of streams and rivers, all brimming with bream. As their name tells, they eat snails and muscles, crushing the shell with a tough muscle in their gullet. Shellcracker fishing catching huge monster slabs youtube. Fishing for bluegill and shellcracker in the peak of the spawn is one of them. When bream are bedding, you can catch them quite easily. Shellcracker, bluegill bedding times near outdoors. Put them on the bottom with a bb shot if in still pond water. There are also bedding shell crackers on the flats, wigglers are the bait there. We visited a spot called flat swamp expecting little more than a day catching sunfish, but what we didnt expect was that some of those would turn out to be nearly.
He and his son jett often spend a few weeks in the spring looking for bedding bluegills, shell crackers and even crappie and he has perfected finding and marking their beds and then turning around and catching the fish with a simple livebait drop shot rig showed to him by flw tournament director bill. Shellcracker swim the shallow coves where submerged grass and bushes mix to. If you find a crackerjack shellcracker bed, keep it in. If shellcrackers are your target, get a little wetter. For fishing in dirty water, a bulky bait for power fishing is usually the choice.
Going to a supposedly great shellcracker pond this week. I would bait up wait several minutes, then ease back in position to coax the crackers. Tips for catching bigger bream this spring and summer. Redear sunfish to biologists, or chinquapin to louisiana anglers, these feisty fish typically favor deeper haunts, but when a. Crappie fishing, bluegill, shellcracker and crappie. Steven said the best and only bait he uses are worms, black wigglers to be. Shellcracker bait to avoid cats i like to fish those deep water shellcrackers in juliette, but its hard to keep the catfish off the hook. I went fishing for shellcracker at clarks hill the week after easter last year. Why not invest in luxury bed linens and bedding collections. Catching bluegill and shellcracker on kentuckhy lake. Remember, this is a wood bait check out the detailing around the head. Shell crackers start bedding in april and usually bed around the full moon in the summer months.