What is the best bait for redear sunfish?
Rister said meal worms and crickets are the preferred live baits for redear sunfish, while red worms and crickets are tops for bluegills. The recommended strategy for both species is suspending the bait under a float.
How do you fish for redear sunfish?
It is more difficult to catch Redear than most other sunfish; they don’t take artificial lures but easy take natural baits like earthworms, crickets grass shrimp and especially snails and mollusks. Most fish are taken on fishing telescopic poles with small hooks, corks, and split shot for weight.
How do you fish a red ear sunfish?
Notice the “red ear” behind the gill flap. This is just a little guy. Redear sunfish aka Shellcracker Bream are like bluegills on steroids. For consistent redear success you’ll have to target them differently than their bluegill cousins.
How do you catch big shell crackers?
Because shellcrackers aren’t particularly susceptible to lures, most anglers use live bait. Worms, grass shrimp and crickets are probably the top three in popularity, but waxworms, meal worms, leeches, catalpa worms and bits of crayfish tail or mussel meat also get their attention.
Where can I find redear beds?
Redear typically spawn on underwater points and shorelines with submerged treetops. Several fish usually spawn in the same area creating beds which are very close to each other. Depending on the population density, there may be from three to twenty beds in the same area.
What is the best bait for shellcracker?
Where do you catch redear?
Smaller lakes offer productive redear sunfish fishing as well. McNeely Lake in Jefferson County, Briggs Lake in Logan County, Three Springs Lake in Warren County, Lake Reba in Madison County, Pennyrile Lake in Christian County and Marion County Lake all hold good populations of redear sunfish.
Where can I find shellcracker?
Shellcrackers are native to the southeastern U.S., from Florida to Texas to Illinois and back to the Atlantic coast. They have also been stocked into waters of many states outside this range. They thrive in lakes, ponds and rivers that have warm, clear water, especially where vegetation is present.
How do you find shell crackers?
To find these areas, I ease my boat along parallel to shore and look for places where these types of bottom extend above the water line. When I see a likely spot, I test-fish it straight off the bank in 3-7 feet of water. Shellcrackers tend to bed deeper than bluegill.
How long do shellcrackers stay on bed?
The fish usu- ally bed on the two moons in March, but if there has been a cold spell late in the winter, it will put the bedding off until the last moon in March and the first moon in April. This gives anglers a good month of bedding fish to fill boats to the brim.