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I actually feel a little foolish writing this week’s fishing article. I suppose I’d feel the same way if I told a guy he might want to grab his umbrella before heading out into a torrential rainstorm. Yes, it’s pretty tough to sound like a smart guy when you’re stating the painfully obvious, and it’s apparent that anglers who have ventured out to throw minnows and grubs at the crappies and sunfish have done very well for themselves during the past few days. The predictable, fast-action panfish bite that we look forward to each spring is upon us, and we’re experiencing it right now on our area lakes.

So, is there anything I can share with you about early, open-water panfishing that hasn’t already been mercilessly beaten to death in dozens of papers and magazines? Well, perhaps one or two things.

It’s worth mentioning that crappies and sunfish have eyes situated near the top of their head. (Wow, don’t stop now, Fishing Wizard! Are you next going to explain to us that they actually use their fins to propel themselves underwater?) What I’m getting at is that they’re built to ambush their prey from below and “feed up,” so-to-speak. The next time you drift or motor over a school of crappies or sunfish and your LCR tells you that the top of the school is, say, 6-feet down, try targeting the upper level of fish by setting your bobber stop at 3-5-feet. By working the crappies or sunfish at or near the top of the school, you just might afford yourself more time to catch greater numbers of fish before they wise up and move, or stop feeding altogether.

Conversely, if your jig continually drops from the water’s surface through 5-feet of actively feeding crappies or sunfish to reach fish at or near the bottom of the school, you run the risk of spooking and turning off more fish than you’ll catch. I hardly need to mention that a hooked crappie struggling and swimming pell-mell through a school of already skittish fish can shut down a good bite in a New York minute.

A couple of other things to keep in mind are water temperature and wind. When surface water temperatures reach the magic 50-degree mark in the dark-bottomed bays and along shorelines, it’s almost a foregone conclusion that crappies will be present. Also, concentrate on the windy side of the lake. The waves bring with them the warmer surface water and small marine life that attracts minnows, and in turn, the crappies.

That being said, I still feel like I’ve stated the obvious. Oh well, I gave it a shot. To be honest, for the next 8-weeks or so, you’d need to really work hard to have a crummy day on the water if you’re targeting crappies and sunfish. You certainly don’t need a crystal ball or a Gypsy’s clairvoyance to foresee that springtime nearly always brings with it fantastic fishing. No, there aren’t too many groundbreaking tactics to share and top-secret spots are nearly impossible to find. So if you begin to regularly see boats full of happy anglers parked in shallow bays in April or May, odds are that they’re catching plenty of fish and having a heckuva fun time doing it.

Dan Brown’s weekly outdoor column is brought to you by Frankies Bait and Marine in Chisago City and St. Croix Outdoors in St. Croix Falls, Wisconsin.

Dan Brown is a director at the Chisago Lakes Achievement Center in Chisago City. In addition, Brown is a fly casting instructor and trout fishing guide at Seven Pines Lodge in Lewis, WI. Recently Brown was featured on Ron Schara’s Minnesota Bound and ESPN II’s Backroads with Ron and Raven, as well as KSTP channel 5’s Eyewitness News Morning Show. He is a Taylors Falls resident and can often be found on the area lakes, trout streams and the St. Croix river.

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