Thread: Shrimp bits for panfishing

Hello, I am new to this forum and this is my first posting.

I live in north Mississippi and have access to a lot of good ponds, and we also have three large reservoirs, Grenada, Enid, and Sardis within 45 minutes of my house. Bryant landing at Grenada is five minutes away. Some of you may have been there, as it leads to Turket Creek, a top place on the lake. It's a good area to live in if you love to fish as I do. Any for the past few years crappie and bluegill have become my favorites. I don't think God made a prettier fish that a black striped crappie.

I stumbled across a little trick that may help some of you. It's a proven winner, and I never fish without it.

I buy a regular size bag of Kroger "salad" or "popcorn" shrimp, the small ones. I then cut each into four or five pieces, and cut up a couple of hundred like this. Then I put them in a plastic cup, add water and lots of salt (about as much salt as water), and let them sit in the regrigerator over night. Then I rinse them off, and store in a small Ziplock Snack Bag, the smallest size. I've tried all sorts of ways to store them, but the small bags are the best. You can easily keep 300+ pieces in one of these bags. Each Kroger bag makes hundreds and hundreds of shrimp. I've gotten as many as 1,000 when I cut them small, but I don't recommend this. A friend made the season one year on one Kroger bag, for less than $5.00. Just keep the salted shrimp bits in the regriferator and they will last forever. But...the fish take them so fast you might be surprised how quick they go!

If you have special preferences you can doctor them up a little. You can add food colors, for example, if you wanted red shrimp, or a color that works well on a certain lake or pond. You can add garlic and other favorite flavors/scents if you like this. Larger shrimp bits seem to help the effectiveness of a plastic worm hook, if you like bass fishing.

Panfishing is just tops for me. Lots of fun, lots of action, and great eating. I fish pretty simply, and I think that's best, too. I use an ultra-light ten foot B & M pole (I had one of the first prototypes years ago), and a $3.00 Slater's Pole reel, the basic little plastic one. I've tried every reel imaginable, but for me, and single line jigging, this is the most practical and effective. My whole rig is only a very few ounces.

I use eight pound green Solar XT line as a main line. I have tried all types, but this is the most visible to me, and by far the toughest. Never had it to break on a fish. I tie on a clear leader, usually Berkely in four, six, or eight pound, and it's three feet long. I can see the green line very easily, but the fish have a hard time seeing the clear leader. Using a three foot leader, it is a very effective depth gauge.

Slater's hair jigs, made here, are my favorite, and again I've tried them all. I have five standards, and this is all I carry. All are #6 or #8. Mr. Slater has told me many times he prefers the #8, and he was, I believe, a four time crappie fisherman in Mississippi years ago. We have nicknames for the favorite colors: The Dallas Cowboy (gray-blue-gray), The Miami Dolphin (white-chartreuse-orange), The Pink Panther (white-pink-pink), The Slater Special (orange-black-yelloe), and the Black Beauty (black-black-black) that we use on bluegill. Mr. Slater ranks the #8 Slater's Special his personal favorite, and the #8 Dallas Cowboy second. He says there is only one color for bluegill -- black. He's right.

We had a hard time catching late season bluegill on naked jigs, so that led me to develop the shrimp recipe. That solved the problem, and taught me the importance of tipping all jigs. I think meal worms are also excellent, but just usually use the shrimp because it is also effective, but inexpensive, very easy to keep, and a real handy bait.

I fish out of a simple John boat with simple equipment. A small tackle box, a few dozen Slater's jig, and a few light spinning lures for spawning bluegill. I've found the orange and chartreue Beetle Spin and the orange and chartreuse small Rebel crawfish to be the best in the spring. Add to that the same size and color in a Rooster Tail. It can all be pretty simple, if you let it.

I keep a home made cord around my neck that has an Eye Buster, a convex finger nail clipper for cutting line, and a hook remover. That's about the extent of my equipment.

I am fortunate to have a farm pond that I fertilize, and I also feed the fish. Bluegill love floating catfish food, which I found a surprise. They go nuts over it if you feed them everyday. If we really want to, we can catch 100+ bluegill from 3/4 to a pound in an afternoon. Nice, big bulls, with foreheads. I stocked the Florida strain.

The biologist say not to stock crappie in a pond, but I did, and have had no trouble. In fact, I have a hard time keeping the population as high as I want it. You can't really consistently grow super large crappie in a pound, but you can have a lot of mid size fish, and they are a blast to catch. I think the key to my lake not over crowding is that I have a lot of bass, and we never keep any. I think to get my crappie population up I will have to start keeping bass. I debated for years about introducing crappie into the lake, and finally went against the advice of the biologist and did it anyway. Again, I have had no trouble whatsoever with over crowding or stunted fish, and I've been stocking them since around 1992. I never got that seven year stunt cycle you hear about.

So, that's about it. Just wanted to say Hello and introduce myself, and share some of the things that have worked for me. I hope they work for you, too.

Happy to be here.

Don

No gabowman. I have used shrimp to bait trotlines, and had great success with catfish that way. I just use the shrimp now as a tipping. If I were not going to use jigs I would be strictly a minnow man. The only thing with minnows...they are so hard to keep...and seems like you run out when the fish are biting, or you have too many left over that die. I just got tired of fooling with them. One of the most difficult of all baits to handle, but I will say this. The best minnow "bucket" is a cooler with a tight fitting lid. The larger, the better. I gave up trying the styrofoam buckets years ago. A little ice in the water helps, and certainly an aerator. Keeping minnows the right way is about the most difficult of any bait to take care of.

Didn't give you the answer you wanted, but this is all I have. Good luck.

Don