Big Panfish love Rapala ultralight twitch baits

Big gills and crappies love the Rapala ultralight crank (twitch) bait - so do walleyes (Photo cred: @isaac_painter)

We have some unprecedented late fall weather here in Michigan and I intended to take full advantage of the opportunity. So while every other dude was up in a deer stand, I hit an area lake two different days. One with my 9 year old, and the other to shoot a video for our YouTube channel.

Our first trip out wasn’t impressive. We watched a guy smoke the big gills right in front of us. We really didn’t go prepared. I grabbed a couple of panfish rods, but I didn’t show up to the lake with my A game. So we caught some fish, but I was bound and determined to head back the next day and actually catch fish.

Here’s how things went down:

1. I laid in bed and thought through what I needed to do differently: bring ultralight Rapala cranks, VMC tungsten fly jigs on a stationary bobber and another set up of the TFJ on a slip bobber.

2. Make good decisions based on what I was seeing on my livescope. All the fish on the screen were suspended. Lots of panfish high up off the bottom. (I think our mistake the day before is that we were fishing underneath the fish!)

3. Cover ground. Move until you contact fish and then hit your anchor button and sit on them until they move. Repeat.

And this is exactly what we did. I started throwing the Rapala ultralight, which is a proven panfish killer. And in the first couple of minutes, I caught four gills on four casts. Isaac, my YouTube video production partner, got in on the action and caught some massive crappies. These fish were amped up and were smoking the baits. And so we moved around, making long casts and finding fish almost everywhere we looked. We only wanted to keep enough for a meal - and we put all the big ones back.

We ended the day catching and releasing a beautiful walleye! What an incredible day! And for us, it all happened because we picked up the right bait.

Here’s how you fish this ultralight crank:

1. Make a long cast.

2. Twitch the bait and pause it. A twitch is a short, sharp snap where the bait moves only inches. You don’t want to use your reel to move the bait, you are only reeling up the slack in your line caused by the twitching motion.

3. When you pause it, it slowly falls. Your goal is to keep your line tight so that the braid essentially sets the hook for you.

4. Cover water. We would catch fish in little pods. And when you would catch a couple the school would move so you’d have to keep searching for them with the cast.

Can’t wait to see how the video turns out! If you get a chance, consider checking out our YouTube channel and subscribe so that you’ll be the first to see these videos as soon as they get posted! Here’s the link to our channel!