There are many days during the summer, in late July and August, when bass and the other chief game fish have gone to very deep water and are gorged and resting. During these warm summer days—and in the heavily fished resort areas, or close to our cities—only really expert anglers can get bass. Sometimes nobody can.
So, if you’re on your vacation and love to fish, what do you do? You go after panfish. And don’t let anybody tell you that skill and knowledge about their habits make no difference in the catch. They do. But the point is, you can almost always find some place in your vacation lake or stream where you can catch panfish.
By panfish I mean Bluegills, Sunfish, Rock bass, Crappies, Perch, Bullheads and Catfish.

The big majority of American fishermen started their angling careers when they were boys and girls by catching bluegills or sunfish with worms. No youngster’s fishing education is complete without this experience—and there isn’t any way of catching panfish that puts as many on a fish-stringer as the old, reliable, live bait method. I am going to tell you about that in a moment or two, just in case you may have forgotten. I will also suggest some delightful ways of taking panfish by fly fishing. But first you must know how to find the panfish.

How To Locate Panfish In Lakes

Panfish are school fish. I mean that bluegills, sunfish and perch mostly live and travel in fairly large schools of fish of about the same size. This means that your first and most important job in catching panfish is to locate a school. Here your stream thermometer again becomes your first and most reliable helper.
Sunfish and bluegills in lakes follow fairly closely a composite of the general water temperature formula for largemouth and small-mouth bass. Most panfish roughly follow the small-mouth schedule in the colder temperature ranges and the large-mouth in the wanner water brackets.
In water under 50° F., most panfish schools will be in deep water since it is warmer. At around 45°, this condition usually changes; the shallower parts of the lake gradually become the warmer water locations.
Under 45° Water
in water under 45°, panfish will be in deep water from 10 ft. to 25 ft. deep. At this water temperature, pick out the side or end of the lake that is deepest. There is almost always such a location in any fresh water lake. If you don’t already know the depth, you can usually tell this section because the banks near it are higher than those on the other shores. Select a point or prominent bank in this area, work out far enough from the shore to get the right depth, and begin to fish. As panfish schools move around, you may have to change locations often until you locate a tribe of them. If you don’t get strikes, move somewhere else until you find a school of fish. Stay there until the school moves.

In this water temperature you’ll have to fish close to the bottom-8 inches to 1 ft. from it. You’ll do better with live bait than with flies at this depth, although expert handling of nymphs will get you fish.