Ultralight fishing for panfish with the Rapala F2 spinning rod, Rapala Halo reel and Jointed Rapala.
Posted on June 7th, 2014
June is an excellent month to target chunky panfish along rocky shorelines. One of the best ways to catch them is either to cast small “micro-grubs” like the new line of TriggerX panfish creatures.
If I’m fishing from shore, I also like casting a #5 Jointed Rapala. I find the #5 is the perfect size for larger panfish, it casts well and only swims about 2′ below the surface so there is little chance to get caught on the bottom.
I fish all of my small baits with the Rapala F2 ultralight spinning rod matched with a Rapala Halo ultralight reel loaded with Sufix 832, 4 lb. test braid, and Sufix 4 lb. Flurocarbon leader.
Even though you can get a mixed-bag of bluegill, crappie, perch and rock bass, I really like the aggressive nature of rock bass, and the chunky size they can reach. On my last outing I caught several rock bass that were around the 1lb. mark, which makes for lot’s of fun on an ultralight!
