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Casting the right panfish lures to the right kinds of places can produce fun and highly dependable fall fishing action.

Want to find hot fishing action this summer? Follow these tips formed from many years of wade-fishing in streams and learn how to catch more fish.

It’s never too hot to go fishing, especially when you are wade-fishing streams.
Even when the temps reach more than 100 degrees, stream fish will still bite. They were designed to eat!

Here are a few rules of thumb to help you catch fish during the heat of summer while wade fishing.

The “brown bass”, formally known as the smallmouth bass is one of the greatest natural resources, we have swimming in the waters across our country. Even more special is the fact that this hard-fighting species roams abundantly in the smallest creeks and streams offering excellent wade fishing adventures for anyone who seeks! Finding and catching them though can be a task worth researching though, because smallmouth aren’t everywhere in creeks and won’t bite just any particular lure. A sense of stealth needs to be implied and some fishing skill must be put forth.  I’m going to give you a three-part system in this blog to hopefully provide enough information for you to be successful and have some lasting fun this summer wading creeks for smallmouth bass.

Waking the surface with crankbaits and minnow lures is a highly effective tactic for everything from bluegills to saltwater predators like redfish and striped bass. Here’s what you need to know about this fun fishing technique.

You wouldn’t think a 1 ½-inch Rebel Crickhopper and a 7-inch Cotton Cordell Red Fin would have anything in common. One is grasshopper shaped, weighs only 3/32 ounce and is best fished on ultralight tackle. The other is shaped like a big baitfish, weighs a full ounce and is best suited for fairly heavy spinning or baitcasting tackle.

However, these two baits (along with many others that fall in-between in size) lend themselves to fishing the same way. Both work wonderfully as wake baits, and while the scale of everything, the setting and the fish species targeted differ substantially, the actual technique and the explosiveness of the results are the same.

By Jeff Samsel

Fly-fishermen know. Whether they are targeting brown trout, stream smallmouths or farm pond bluegills, fly-rodding anglers know that from mid-summer to late fall, displaced terrestrial insects provide important forage for gamefish cruising near the shore, making hopper patterns and other “terrestrial” flies outstanding options.

Spin-fishermen often overlook this fun way to fish, but in truth, what a terrestrial insect fly pattern can do, a Rebel Crickhopper can do better! Crickhoppers and Bighoppers (larger Crickhoppers) offer a natural profile and colors, just like a good fly, but it’s far easier to make quick accurate casts to current seams, eddies and pieces of cover with ultralight spinning gear than with a fly rod. In addition, a Crickhopper can be brought to life with rod tip twitches or slow reeling to effectively imitate the natural behavior of terrestrial insects that find themselves afloat.

If you’ve ever seen a cricket or grasshopper land in the water and watched what happened next, you probably understand what makes this kind of fishing so exciting. You also might remember the bug’s behavior. Typically, a grasshopper that finds itself afloat will be motionless at first, maybe just trying to gain orientation. Then, it in starts scurrying across the top – sometimes steadily, but often frantically – in the direction of dry land (or so it hopes). It will stop periodically, whether to rest or regain orientation, and then continue its surface kicking. In many streams, ponds and lakes, chances of getting back to shore are minimal.

Work a Crickhopper to match this behavior. Cast near the bank, beside cover, to a current seam or to some other inviting spot and let the bait rest or drift in the current for several seconds. If nothing attacks, barely twitch the rod tip one or two times and then start working the lure either by reeling steadily or with short sharp twitches of the rod tip. Slow reeling causes the bait to swim at the surface and push out a wake. Quick twitches make it dance more erratically.

Either way, pause the lure every now and then, and be extra ready when you start it moving again. Often fish hover beneath a bait when it stops, and the next bit of motion triggers an attack.

Be aware that if bluegills or other panfish are present, they are apt to hit a Crickhopper repeatedly, and smaller fish, especially, often won’t connect. Don’t set the hook unless the lure disappears, or you’ll yank it away from fish quite a bit. Just keep working it when you are getting smaller bites, and it won’t be long before something attacks more decisively.

Crickhopper Popper

A Crickhopper Popper provides an excellent alternative to the regular Crickhopper when you want sound to get fish’s attention but still want a cricket/grasshopper profile. It has the same body as a Bighopper but is equipped with a cupped popping face. Fish it with gentle rod snaps and pauses and hold on tight!