Cracking the Panfish Code with Tubes

Pennsylvania rivers and lakes are filled with abundant quantities of bluegills, pumpkin seeds, redear sunfish, crappie, and rock bass -- all of which are generally more than happy to attach themselves to a hook containing a meal worm, a commonly sold bait in your favorite bait & tackle shop.

Pumpkin Seed	Bluegill

A meal worm on a #10 hook with a splitshot, or maybe a #10 with a jig, will get you bite after bite of panfish. If there are any around, they are suckers for this combination.

The problem I always have is that very few of the tugs result in a solid catch. Worm after worm is consumed and false alarm after false alarm is punctuated by an actual catch now and then. When you catch a dozen or so fish in 40 minutes, it doesn't matter. But it'll deplete your bait stash for the day. So, I switched to fake meal worms last summer, after growing tired of running through a container of real meal worms every 20 minutes.

Rock Bass

So, instead of fish consuming meal worm after meal worm, they'd end up just tugging on a piece of plastic. Again, more false alarms. And for every 10 nibbles a catch. This might sound like a lot of bellyachin' on my part, but when you've got a 3-year-old with you, that you're trying to impress with the joys of reeling in a fish, it can end up being frustrating and disappointing for both parties.

After another recent similar experience with endless nibbles and few actual catches relative to bobber dunks, I decided to take another approach -- a tube, which is an artificial lure that is a hollowed-out, cylindrical soft plastic lure, with a tentacle-encased open end and a closed rounded head.

Get yourself your ultra-light/light rod with 4# or maybe 6# test line, attach a swivel, with maybe a small split shot, and attach your tube. Flick it near weed lines and around structure and start counting the fish. Once I went to this set-up, out on Maiden Creek last weekend, all of those nibbles easily converted to catches on an almost a one-to-one basis.

Giving tubes a shot when it comes to choosing your panfish arsenal may very well pay off. If you don't feel like rigging up live bait after live bait, or disappointing an impatient child you're hoping to teach the basics of fishing to, your panfish success rate may very well sky-rocket with this approach.

Pro-tip: Smallmouth Bass are known to love tubes as well. You never know what you may end up on the line when you fish with a tube.

Comments

[Leigh]

Nice article, but I don't think that last fish pic is a rock bass.

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