Master Your Retrieve for More Panfish

Many anglers reel the wrong speed and don't know how to impart realistic action on artificial lures

Wheh! It has been a hectic couple of months for me. I’m sure you all can relate to being busy with new projects from time to time. Starting my own consulting business after 30 years of being a W2 employee has been exciting, nerve racking and fulfilling. I’m finally done traveling for a minute and can focus back on content here. I plan to really ramp this up now. I really want this to be some of the best and most useful info to put good anglers on more fun ways to chase bites around the country.

I started following panfish around the end of last summer to document their behaviors and migrations. Now I have a full year of observations, findings, notes and more to share. Including videos of how fish setup in in all these different seasons. Since I started it around this time last year, I’ve waited until now to really get deep into it. But now I will keep articles coming to subscribers hot and heavy. Lot of cool stuff coming now.

Today I want to talk about an observation I’ve made fishing with a several good anglers as well as newer or less frequent anglers. And it’s made for interesting discoveries on the separation of average anglers to very good anglers. Good anglers really understand how to retrieve their lures in ways that trigger and naturally attract predator fish. Even something as simple as bluegill fishing benefits immensely from a nuanced retrieve matrix that you should employ to really make catching big ones more consistent with artificial baits.

Yes, there are lots of times where throw it out and reel it, and that works. Generally speaking, that occurs when large masses of bluegills group up together. But when they are more spread out or on various types of cover, a bunch of different retrieves work better in my findings. So I’m going to tackle this piece by piece to share how to catch big panfish consistently every month and temperature of the year with more natural presentations.

Speed kills

Speed is relative. What signifies fast for one angler is average or slow for another. So keep all this in mind. When I say medium, I’m thinking of reeling at the speed most people talk. Smooth. Consistent. Effortless. I actually think reeling slowly or quickly requires more effort. What feels like a natural consistent turn of the reel is medium or maybe medium fast on retrieves seems like breathing to me. No effort whatsoever.