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BlueEyedSon

Bream/panfish patterns?

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Brian, many ,many fly patterns will work well for panfish. Here in MD, I primarily fish in tidal creeks & target both White & Yellow Perch, plus the various Sunfish species. Mostly Bluegills, Pumpkinseeds & Crappies.

For surface flies I like simple foam beetles, hoppers or crickets, small poppers and smaller Gurgler variations. For subsurface, nymphs & wet flies work fine, but I also like to use some "Bonefish" style flies since grass shrimp are a typical forage, as are small baitfish. Again, they can be simple patterns. You can't go wrong with small Woolly Worms or Woolly Buggers either, or small Clouser Minnows. smile.png

 

Here's some pics:

Gurgler style.

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Wet Flies.

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Foam "Bug".

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Simple flies. I call these "Wigglers".

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Woolly Worms, this is a variation with a forked rubber tail.

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"Ant" patterns.These sink, but floating versions work well too.

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Small deer hair bugs, some other foam flies & a "Miracle Nymph" & another "Wiggler".

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Various panfish flies.

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Panfish Clouser's & Woolly Buggers.

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Various "Bonefish" style flies. Gotcha's & Crazy Charlie style, plus a few shrimp & spoon flies.

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Epoxy head flies. Epoxy Charlies.

 

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More small Clouser Minnows & Bonefish flies.

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This is a box of Shad flies, but Crappies & Perch like them as well.

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Rather than over whelm you since it appears that you are a newb I will give you a simple and easy to tie topwater craft foam yellow spider on a size 8,10, 12......Slow sinker spider with maybe a chenille, floss, or yarn body in the same sizes in maybe yellow and some in black. ......for a deeper or bottom bouncer use bead chain eyes or lead wraps on shank of same size hooks and wrap the body of chenille with some cheap hackle. I prefer grisly hackle.

 

I have boxes of many flies like tidewater but to start and be successful does not require hundreds of patterns. I just enjoy looking for that magic pattern that always works and no fish can refuse. The holy grail if you will. I am sure there is not such thing but it is fun looking. I do the same thing for bass and carp.

 

When it warms up all you need is a yellow sheet of 2mm craft foam and 3 sizes of hooks and a package of silicone legs and you will be able to catch sunfish in the morning and evening most every day. You can expand out from there as you wish and collect hundreds of dollars of 'stuff'. Sorry, I forgot some 6/0 uni thread or 120 Danville.....I use a lot of black and red .

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I'm with Ditz... You could search the many previous threads on this same question and get the same answers. Just about anything small enough to swallow will catch bream. Best bet for starters is a foam spider for topwater, and bead head Bully's Spider for sinking. Both are as easy to tie as falling out of a canoe, and both highly rated by all bluegill fanatics.

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Like Ditz and Sandfly, I have at least two or three boxes of pan fish flies. Let give you an easy popper to tie. The guy who showed it to me called it a "fun foam popper" You need a hook, size 8 or 10, either standard or 1 XL dry fly hook or the same size light wire aberdeen style crappie hook. A bit of marabou, some hackle and a foam circle punched out of 3 mm craft foam, a nickle or dime size circle works best for pan fish.

 

This one's bass size, and a bit fancy, the circle I used was quarter or half dollar size, but it will give you an idea of what one looks like.

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Put hook in vise, wrap your thread on the shank up to just behind the eye, leave a bit of bare shank behind the eye.

Bring the thread back to the bend

Tie in the marabou tail

Tie in your hackle by the tip

Bring your thread forward

Take the foam circle and pinch the bottom, it will form a cupped face. Now center the circle on the shank and pinch the bottom.

Wrap the pinched portion down tightly, straighten the circle if you have to.

Leave the thread hanging, put a drop of super glue on the wraps holding the popper down

Wrap your hackle forward, tie it off behind the head.

What I do at that point is bring the thread under the head then make a few wraps behind the eye. Do a couple of half hitches or a whip finish, and then a drop of head cement or super glue to the wraps.

I use mostly white and yellow foam, marabou to match and grizzly hackle. Once you tie up a couple, and get the feel for it, you can tie one in a couple of minutes.

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Tidewaterfly.... you've got some great stuff! I really like the bee. But I've gotta know: in the box of "bonefish style" flies, the right-hand box section, the 2nd fly from the upper left corner, looks like the head of a cobra. What in the **** is that? You got a better pic of it?

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You mean the pinkish looking one with the chartreuse & black eye? If so, that's a small epoxy spoon fly. Quite easy to make. The frame is heavy mono, tied in near the hook eye, them folded back to form the spoon shape & tied closer to the bend. The epoxy is added with a small spatula. That one has some glitter & pink dye mixed into the epoxy.

As long as the epoxy is not too thin it will fill the void in the frame, but has to be rotated until it sets. Then, the eyes are added before the epoxy is completely set & still tacky. Afterwards a coat of Sally Hansen's covers the entire spoon & helps protect the eyes.

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Really clever. I hadn't thought of making mini-clousers for bluegills. I expect it wobbles while being retrieved... right?

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It actually darts more than wobbles. If you notice the finger nail fly in the other side of that same box, made with fake plastic nails, it wobbles much better, but with these flies being so small it's easy to retrieve too fast & cause them to spin.

 

Yes, I've tied mini Clousers too for panfish. The ones in the fly box with the black & olive buggers (3rd fly box pic down) where tied with panfish in mind. They're tied on size 6 Gamakatsu Aberdeen hooks & all have bead chain eyes.

 

Don't you guys get me wrong with all these flies! I agree with you that so many are not needed for panfish. A good basic selection that covers the water column where an angler fishes is all that's needed. However, I like to tie & I like a lot of variety. My post is only to illustrate to Brian what types I use & what species I use them for. As I said, there are many that can be good for panfish species.

 

I told this story before, the largest Bluegills I ever caught was while in FL. They were in the 12" to 13" length range & caught on white marabou streamers. All I had with me was a 6 wt rod. On that same trip to FL, I fished in a canal at one of the lakes near Kissimmee. The weather sucked! A cold front arrived the same time we did & the wind was brutal. My intention had been to rent a boat, but because of the wind, the marina would not allow rentals. I ended up fishing in the canal leading out to the lake & the only fly that seemed to work was a translucent gray nymph. I did catch some bass later as the wind died, and on a small fox fur streamer that had some pearl Flashabou in it. But the Bluegills only wanted that nymph. I tried the usual panfish flies too!

 

So, from experiences like that, I prefer to have a wide variety of flies available to me! wink.png

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I like a variety too, but I generally tie maybe 2 or 3 of a given pattern, possibly in different colors. Fishing for gills, I've always used mono leader, and I've never lost a fly, so I don't really have many exact duplicates. But up until now, I've always used floaters (poppers, foam spiders, etc.). I've recently tied a few streamers and buggers (all different) but haven't used them yet. I don't have and have never tied a nymph. Is the one you used in the database? I might give one or two a shot.

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Thanks for all the suggestions, especially to Tidewaterfly - that is quite the impressive batch of flies! Lot's of great looking patterns. Thanks, again!

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These are my main flies for sunfish but no way near all that are in my fly box.

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nice job by all.i use only a few patterns as i like to throw them with abandon .but unless they are on beds they can be more selective than people think so having a good selection cant hurt.i have just pared it down to 5 or 6 flies in a few colors.gonna have to try those deer hair bugs tho.gotta have em even if i never use em

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FlaFly, it's very likely that most folks who fish for panfish would rather catch them on surface flies. I prefer it, but know that's not always the best approach so I have subsurface flies too. As a kid, fishing a local tidal creek, I experimented a lot with the flies I tied, and primarily targeted the Bluegills & Pumpkinseed sunfish, as that creek was full of them. In the spring the nests were easy to find, and I got to observe how they reacted to the flies. A lot of that was simply being a kid & not knowing, some it was the flies were not always "panfish" patterns, as I was copying what I saw in magazines as best I could. For example, I think it was AJ McClane that wrote an article about a simple trout nymph called the "Miracle Nymph. Some here may be familiar with it as it's still a popular fly. I had no access to trout at the time, so those panfish were my test subjects. Another fly was called a Corkie or Corker. I'm sure some here, especially PA folks may know them too. Nothing more than a cylinder of cork or balsa wood on a hook & painted to imitate various things that trout may eat. They work quite well on panfish too.

 

Going back to my FL Bluegill story, I was fishing the Withalacoohee River at Dunnellon Fl, and looking to target bass. I had rented a boat & got there at day break. That river is spring fed & very clear, but I was fishing before the Sun got up good, so couldn't see into the water. I started with the White Marabou Streamer, not really knowing what to start with and the first fish I caught was one of those large Bluegills, and several more were also caught on that fly. Had I started with a smaller offering or a surface fly, I'm not sure I would have caught those larger fish. Bigger Bluegills will readily eat smaller fish it seems.

 

That gray fly I used at the lake canal was a one of a kind I had in my fly box and not something I might have usually tried. I may still have it, but would have to check my boxes. If I do, I'll try to provide a pattern recipe. I know I've never posted it anywhere.

 

Over the years many of my fly choices for fishing have been based on "new" flies or experiments I had tied & on nothing but a desire to try something new or simply a whim. That's another reason I have so many flies. Once I found flies that worked well, no matter where I may have used them or initially why, I tend to add similar flies to my boxes. I'm sure many folks do the same thing.

 

The "Bonefish" & Shad flies I posted above are good examples of flies I tied or used for a purpose, then found them to work well for other fish I targeted. That was primarily due to catching other fish on them while targeting Shad. When the Shad migrate into our rivers, the various panfish species are often making their spawning migrations up the rivers too, so catching them in the same places is not uncommon.

 

You say you've never tied or used a nymph. In my younger days, I kept a lot of the panfish I caught to eat, and found all kinds of nymph parts in their belly's. My experiments & seeing what was in the gut of fish I caught often had me tying all kinds of flies, even nymphs, to target the panfish in my local creek & other places I fished.

 

Trout are not the only fish to eat nymphs, but best thing was the panfish were not as selective about the patterns. I learned a lot from all that as a kid, and had a lot of fun doing it too! I spent way too much time rooting around in ponds & streams back then too, looking for the various bugs that were there.

 

BlueEyedSon, you're welcome! biggrin.png

 

Jcozzz, those deer hair bugs I posted are tied on size 8 dry fly hooks. wink.png

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