Panfish on tenkara with Bart Lombardo

0:00This is Daniel Galhardo and you're listening to the Tenkara Cast, a podcast about the simple Japanese method of fly-fishing, Tenkara. In the Tenkara Cast we'll be sharing information on techniques, history, philosophy, and Tenkara stories from anglers all over the world. This podcast is brought to you by Tenkara USA, introducing Tenkara outside of Japan since 2009. It's only possible we create content such as this podcast and videos because of your support. So we thank you so very much for purchasing Tenkara USA rods, lines, and flies. I hope you enjoy learning more about the simple method of fly fishing. What do you want us to talk about? Hello. What do you want us to talk about? Hello. Can you hear me? Yeah, well at the end you can kind of say, here's something that we did. Welcome back to another episode of the Tenkara Cast. Today I'm very excited to have two people joining me. In the recording of this podcast, we're going to have a nice conversation.

1:03I've got with me here Bart Lombardo from Panfish on the Fly. And we also have, a lot of you already know him, TJ Ferreira, who's our customer support director. And we are on the road. So today, one of the few episodes of the Tenkara Cast that I'm not recording from the office. We are in, where are we? we are in lovely large Lawrenceville yeah it's kind of confusing because the fly fishing shows in Duluth but they call it the Atlanta show yeah we're staying a house in Lawrenceville Georgia and we dragged Bart down here with us so Bart so you joined us at the you've been helping us actually for a few years at fly fishing shows. Do you like it? Oh I love it. I love the shows. I love being on the other side of the aisle when I help you guys out. I've been going to the show in New Jersey since it first started. I haven't missed one of them but it's been real interesting the last couple of years helping Tenkara USA out. So I make TJ go to these shows. Why do you want to help us?

2:22Why do you want to be there? Well, I love spreading the word about Tenkara. I was a very early adopter of Tenkara. I've been basically using your equipment since 2009 when you first introduced it into the United States. And I'm just very excited about spreading the word. Wow, that's great. I really, really appreciate your help over the years and you committing to helping us. Because you are retired. I am. I am retired. You could just be home kind of sunbathing in New Jersey right now. I don't know. And, yeah, so thanks so much for joining us. It's really fun. Bart, I was telling TJ yesterday, like, Bart one day has to write a book of short stories. because you have so many wonderful stories and you've kept us so entertained his entire time. Yeah, we've been laughing quite a bit at what stories he has to tell of his youth and even his adulthood.

3:24I don't know if there's a distinct separation between the two. One just kind of flowed right into the other. So we mentioned that you're retired. And what did you used to do before you started devoting so much more time to fishing? Well, I'm a retired police captain. I worked 30 years on the job, and I don't know if I spend any more time fishing now than I did before. I spent an awful lot of time fishing before as well. So I'm enjoying my retirement, and I do get to fish a little bit more. But I also have been doing a little bit more writing. I have the Panfish on the Fly website blog, and that's been keeping me busy. It's been very popular with a lot of folks. and it keeps you busy. Nice and Panfish on the Fly I'm assuming the the title of the blog is pretty obvious but tell us a little bit more about what you write. Well the my whole I had a blog previous to Panfish on the Fly which the whole premise of the blog was I had a lot of friends that were from other parts of the country that were never really exposed to trap fishing. I had I had a lot of friends in Mississippi and Texas and in the southwest, and they were always very interested in my exploits as a trout fisherman, so I started a blog called the Jersey Angler.

4:46But here in New Jersey, our trout fishing is really a spring, fall, or winter activity. During the summer, our waters get far too warm. They will support trout, but they're usually a little too warm to stress the fish during the summertime. So you need something else to do to keep yourself busy if you're going to fish 12 months out of the year. And that's where the panfish and bass and other warm water species come in. And it's, you know, it's interesting because I have this tremendous knowledge of pinfish and bass and, you know, in general, which we're going to get into today. So today's episode is really kind of trying to cover a little bit more on the tips and techniques for pinfish fishing. But we have a tremendous background with cold water fisheries. I mean, most of the time we seem to talk about your trips to, you know, a lot of different trout waters. How much of your time do you split between two?

5:47Well, as I said before, in New Jersey, we have our trout season is really just a fall, winter, and spring activity. It really kind of wraps up around June, although we do have rivers that will support fish year-round. They warm up to the point that if you were to catch fish during the summer months, you'd put a lot of undue stress on them, and even though you may release them, they would be floating belly up in an hour or two from the stress of the fight so i've always been a warm water addict that's how i cut my teeth fly fishing you know i started out fishing for uh for panfish and bluegills just like uh many many anglers have done yeah myself too i eventually graduated to trout and salmon and you know they're they're a passion of mine as well and i travel all over the country fishing for them but um i think These little fish, they hold a real special place in my heart. I enjoy fishing for them, always have. And we have TJ here as well today sitting across the table from us.

6:51We all have a nice glass of wine that Bart's wife made. And today we're having a nice Pinot Noir. Nice. It's just a beautiful, easy-drinking, smooth wine that's just wonderful. And they're so easy-drinking that yesterday we learned that we can get drunk kind of quick. but tj you also do a fair amount of panfish fishing with tenkara um tell us a little bit more about your experiences with panfish what when do you do that yeah i live up in grass valley california and it's up in the foothills and there's quite a few ponds up there and there is one in our semi-private community and they have bass and bluegill so i'm trying to remember what first fish i caught on tenkara it might have been a trout up in the coastal uh northern sierras or northern california but i think right after that i caught quite a few bluegill and that's really where i learned how to land fish because you can catch a lot of bluegill and sunfish on tenkara rods so i started learning how to hook set with them and bring them in and release them and I just had a blast. So yeah, bluegill are great and so ponds up in very northern California by Grass Valley, I catch sunfish and bluegill, especially in wintertime. Our trout season closes November 15th until the last Saturday of April and I would have to travel basically up into the cold snow to fish for trout and I'd rather play around with some bass and bluegill locally so but that's a great point and we gotta you know I never really talk too much about it but bluegill or penfish in general is totally a terrific practice fish yep because oftentimes especially when we're talking about sunfish and bluegill and you know those crappy and so forth you can cast almost any fly there's a lot of ponds that are just filled up with them yep and just get your experience get your hook set landing releasing the whole bit and it's uh and when you latch onto one that's six or seven inches which is a pretty good size sunfish they definitely fight stronger than trout the biggest i ever caught was about a foot long i call that a pizza pie bluegill because this thing was round like a piece of pizza and i thought i had a brick on and it was bending my rod tremendously and this is awesome so yeah I love bluegill and I haven't talked myself in this podcast I don't think we've done any might have done an episode about lake fishing but I haven't really talked much about in fish in general or warm water species and he has a mostly primarily probably 90% of my fishing is for trout but in Colorado where I live it's you know we have seasonality issues with trout fishing as well where you know oftentimes well winter you can still find some open waters but you know there's a lot of open lakes and then like right after winter towards the end of winter we have a runoff season streams are blown out and I'll go catch you know bluegill we have crappie and then I get into the beyond penfish sites wants to know how it's carp as well just for more species I've never caught a crappie is it fight like a sunfish or bluegill same type of side use their side and fatness to kind of pull they they don't really have that that circular fight that the bluegills do where they continue to try and swim in a circle but the fight is similar because they do use that that wide broad body shape to the right yeah I'd like to try one I don't know of any of where I live so that may be some place I have to travel to get something like that yeah one of the reasons that I love these fish so much is because it's just their accessibility.

10:39They're everywhere. You know, I'm about an hour and 15 minutes from my nearest trout stream, but I can be on any number of warm water lakes and ponds around my house in 15, 20 minutes. I could be on the water fishing. Some lakes as close as five minutes. So, you know, trout fishing for me is a, it's a day-long commitment. I have to dedicate a big block of time to get out on the river and enjoy a, you know, a day of trout fishing. As far as panfish and other wormwater species, I could grab this free hour here or there. I always keep a couple tenkara rods tucked into the backseat of my truck. I've been known to walk into a dentist's office thinking of bluegill because there's a nearby pond and I show up a half hour for my appointment. I've got to do something to kill the time, so I break out a rod and I'm in to fish within minutes. Awesome. Yeah, my wife's got a pond up by the library where she works. and they've got sunfish in there. And so if I have to wait for her for like longer than a half an hour, I run up the hill and I go after sunfish.

11:40It's awesome. Yeah, I think that's the thing. I mean, there's so many. So like oftentimes I get to ask people, oh, where can I find trout? And in general, I mean, it depends a lot on where in the country you are. You're looking for streams, but then you have to drive up a little farther. But whenever you look at a map of a lot of like urban areas, and it's just like almost any part of the United States that there's ponds, there's going to be some kind of pinfish. And it's just kind of always surprising. There's a lake close to home where there's a dog park. And sometimes I'll take my dog there, especially during the runoff season, and I'll bring it right along. People see me fishing, and they had no idea there was fish in there. And it's just, you know, they're not anglers. But they're just like everywhere. And I'm not sure how they all get spread to so many lakes. yeah and it's weird through my little community there's a year-round creek that goes through it and the water does get low in the summertime and up by the pond where I normally fish there's bluegill there's no trout in it whatsoever bluegill bass somehow there must be during the winter time that some of these bluegill and bass get into my local creek because I've caught little wild rainbows bluegill and bass in this uh fast running small creek so interesting when you can catch all three in one scoop yeah i know these fish have been aggressively stocked throughout the country but i believe there's also um i read somewhere that they're they're also spread naturally by birds birds walk through you know waiting birds like helens and egrets they walk through the nests and the eggs adhere to their feet and they get spread from one watershed to another and so mother nature does a good job distributing these fish as well so would you say that every pond has fish i think most do um at least in my experience in my area i don't think i've ever come across a body of water that doesn't contain these fish if it's a year-round uh body water there are some you know seasonal uh lakes and ponds that are around they're usually meant for dealing with drainage and overflow and you may not find fish in those areas.

13:50But if it's an established water system, chances are that they have these fish swimming in them. And how do they survive the winter? Because the little pond I fish in is slightly fed by some seasonal creeks and every time I go back there sunfish and bluegill and bass in this pond and I'm amazed that they can survive frozen over ponds. Oh absolutely. They're actually I think they're one of the most popular species sought after by ice fishermen they do feed year-round you catch them in the water whether it's covered with ice or just very cold they they do there are a little bit more sluggish in the colder temperatures but they they do feed year-round and oh quite often caught through the ice so let's talk a little bit more specifics what Bart what's your favorite let's start with rods I guess we can talk about rods lines and flies that are used in Tenkara. So actually before we get into that you fly fish with the reel as well as with Tenkara? I do I am not exclusively a Tenkara fisherman I do fish with Western gear but I find over the years that more and more of my time is being spent with a ten car rod in my hand as opposed to a western fly rod. In fact in my last couple years out in Montana I spent most of the month of July out there. I have not picked up a western fly rod. All my fishing has been exclusively with ten car rod and that's starting to be the case with my warm water exploits as well. So do you find, before again we get into the specifics of how you do it you know in mountain streams and rivers I always say that that's where Tenkara shines the most it's really hard to compare you know Western setup I think with Tenkara because you have that long rod light line you can get on the other side of the currents and that kind of thing but when we're thinking of warm water species we're talking about lakes do you find that there is a lot of limitations or do you miss having a reel sometimes there There are times when there are some limitations to using tenkara equipment on lakes and ponds.

16:06First and foremost is overhead cover. If you were fishing a watershed that has a lot of trees and you're fishing from shore, a very long rod can become very difficult to manage if you have to deal with overhead limbs and trees. so it really requires an ideal set of circumstances open shorelines that are not going to inhibit your back cast in any way you don't want to get your your rod up into the trees because that is the quickest way to end up making a call to customer service yeah having that rock tangled up on a tree loom and then all of a sudden you end up hooking a fish so there are some limitations in regards to that. Because most of these fish are oriented to shoreline structure, the length of the Tenkara Cast is usually not a liability. You can usually reach these fish with most Tenkara rods. I do a lot of fishing from a kayak, so in that situation the Tenkara rod is a perfect tool because I'm no longer limited by overhead cover. I could make a traditional steep Tenkara Cast and present to fly without any worries about snagging the rod and overhead limbs. The accuracy that Tenkara equipment provides as far as casting accuracy is a huge boom for targeting, you know, presenting your flies tight to shoreline cover. So it really does work well there. There's, you know, there is also a concern at times with, you know, there's also other fish that share the waters with panfish, bluegill, crappie, and some of the other sunfish species.

17:50Most of these waters are inhabited by largemouth bass or smallmouth bass, chained pickerel, northern pike, and you do occasionally hook up with these fish as well. So as far as having a rod selection, I'd like to select a rod that gives me the best fight out of the panfish, but also gives me the ability to deal with these larger predators when they show themselves. So which rod is that? My favorite is the Ito. I think that rod still allows you to feel and appreciate the fight of a smaller fish, but the added length of the rod gives you the leverage that you need to deal with a larger fish. If I am out in waters where I know I'm going to encounter larger fish like largemouth bass or large chain pickerel, then at times I'll use a rod like the Amago. It has a little bit more backbone and it'll deal with those fish quite effectively.

18:51But you do kind of sacrifice a little bit on the fight of smaller fish, which you have to target it to begin with. Yeah, the Intu is the one that I carry with me as well for pinfish. the 14 foot plus reach and uh yeah the tip very very sensitive to small fish and then it does have like we've seen a photo of a 29 inch uh pike that was landing that kind of says something i guess what about you tj sato i love the sato and i use it most of the time and talking about having a rod that um can handle the smaller sunfish but yet be capable to land a bass at the same time because you might be in equal water have you ever had it to where you catch a small bluegill and out comes mr bass and he swallows the bluegill and you've got two fish on absolutely that is a hoot i did that once and i'm like holy moly this poor little bluegill didn't fare too well but i had both of them did you bring it in i got the bluegill in but the bass did come off because there was nothing to uh keep him on he did let it go um so i've had that happen to me once and i got the bass really close but yeah like it saw me in this yeah you know another rod to that I like to mention is because these fish are you know they do run on the smaller side and if you were to use a lighter rod rod like the roto you would get the fight that you get out of these fish is incredible I mean you feel every head shake every throb every vibration and it gives you a whole new appreciation of these small little fish on a light rod like that. Yeah, ounce for ounce or pound for pound, I think sunfish are... It's funny, I really just thought of them all as bluegill before. I didn't classify sunfish and bluegill. They're in the same type of family, but they are...

20:39Oh, big fish. Yeah, they're the best fighting fish I've ever caught, and it feels like you've got a handful on your hands when you catch one. Where some trout, you get a good fight, but then they kind of settle down where bluegill just don't settle down until you finally get it in your hand and even then they go crazy so have you ever had a fish that uh your that's in caro is not a good match for like or that you got overpowered by the fish not in regards to panfish i think it's the perfect tool for panfish but um i have tangled with a number of uh larger warm water species actually probably the most notable one this last past spring was a large white koi that was about probably close to 15 pounds I hooked that fish on the Ito with a small soft tackle and that didn't end well. Is it like a carp? Yeah it was it was a giant white koi with these bright red cheeks and someone must let this fish go I got too big for their pond at home and they let it go in a neighborhood lake.

21:50I'll see that every once in a while. You'll be in there and you'll see this big white thing going through the water. It's like, what is that? Yeah, somebody probably put one in there. So what was the end of the story with that one? It was, it wanted to go somewhere in a hurry and it did. It wasn't what the shot could do to stop it. Did it snap the tippet or did the rod break? Oh, no, it didn't break the rod. It snapped the tippet. Okay. It was a fishing 5X tippet. and it just could not stop it yeah no what about lines do you have preference for the type of line or lentil line that you like to use I do I lean towards the level lines one line that I don't recommend at least in most of the warm waters that I fish is a braided line a lot of the waters that I fish have very high algae content at some time of the year and your braided lines can pick up a lot of this debris and algae and they just require a lot of cleaning and maintenance so I like to stick to I'm a big fan of level lines this past season I started playing around with the new tapered lines and the tapered nylon lines and I've been very pleased with them as well they seem to work very well nice yeah that's that's a good tip I never thought too much about it because I've been using level lines for so long but yeah that would require a little bit more maintenance do you have any preferences tj i um i like to use all three lines but i definitely prefer level lines for some reason just my casting stroke i zip them out there and my pond does have a lot of weeds and i've had a braided line before where it seemed to catch up on things a little bit more where the level line just i can pull through a thicket of weed a little easier so yeah level line for ponds for me. And what about length of line? Do you have any preferences?

23:47Well, for me, if I'm fishing from a kayak or fishing from a shoreline where casting is not a problem, I do tend to fish a longer line than I would for trout. I kind of push things to its It's limited at times. Sometimes using a line that's, it may be two times the length of the rod. But most often, I would say that my line length is probably a rod and a half in length. That's probably my standard. Just so I could get a little distance on the cast when I need it. It's usually not a problem with casting as long as I have. I find that it helps with even the landing of the fish too because you just kind of, when you have a shorter line, it tends to make this tighter arc on the rod. Absolutely. Whereas if you have a longer line, the rod stays a little bit more open when you're actually playing the fish. And that gives a, you know, just a fish gets tired out there.

24:49And when you start handlining it, they're already kind of tired and you bring them in faster. Yeah, that longer line also gives me the ability to stand a little bit farther from the water's edge. A lot of these fish, as I mentioned before, they do orient to shoreline structure, and at times they're very, very close to the shoreline. And if you march right up to that shoreline and start casting, just like on a trout stream, we often step on water that we should be fishing. And that longer line allows me to stand off from the shoreline a little bit and cover that shoreline area first before moving up to the edge of the water's edge and then making cast to cover further distances out. And then you mentioned 5X stippet. Is that your standard? I will fish 4X probably more often than 5X in warm water, only because I do tend to run into larger fish from time to time, and I am fishing around structure. So there's woody debris and plant stalks, and even a good-sized bluegill can really take control of the situation and bring you into lily pad stems or into a tree limb.

25:59So I like to use this heavy tippet I can get away with without risking damage to the rod. And TJ, what about length of line for you? Yeah, 3.5 level, 12 to 15 feet, typically with the sato, and 2 to 3 foot of tippet. And in the case of pond fishing, I do not mind my level line being on the water. Oh, sure. I'll reach out further than normal, and I'll actually typically, if the sunfish are a little skittish, which they're normally not, I'll let the fly sink a foot or two or three, and I can still kind of see it. And I'll let the line in the water. And bluegill and sunfish are not bashful. They're not afraid of the line too much. They start congregating in little pods, and you'll see all of a sudden you get three or four of them interested in your fly, and the bigger one will go and slam it. So, yeah, 12 to 15 foot of line I like, and I put some on the water. Oh, definitely. yeah and actually we didn't ask ask you about the length of the tippet I'm in the same boat about three feet of tippet is about the max I'll use and I have absolutely no problem with the line on the water in fact I'll often fish kebari style flies or soft tackles submerged quite a bit that's one of the reasons why I like the level line because it will it will sink yeah and you know times you know like to fish these flies that's a pretty good depth and I'll I'll treat that level line just like I would a sinking fly line and allow it to settle into the water.

27:25So I'll come back into the flies in a minute, but you kind of started touching a little bit on the technique, which kind of made me think of the way that I fish in a lake is completely different from how I fish in a stream. So like, for example, one of my favorite techniques usually, there's a couple, but I like skating the fly sometimes if the fish are really active on the surface. but laying the line on the water completely and just waiting sometimes 20 seconds depending on the flight 30 seconds just waiting for the flight to go as deep as it can and then twitching the fly a couple of times or let it sink and then just pull it like a streamer do you have a favorite technique when you're fishing i think it depends on the time of year and the temperature of the water if i was to go out fishing if i had open water now in new jersey and i hope to get some open water soon. For cold weather, early season, late season, one of my favorite techniques is to make a long cast with a small fly and allow that fly to settle in water, to sink slowly. And I actually watch where my level line enters the water. Watch that piece of line like a hawk.

28:35And any twitching, any movement, these fish will also take a fly as it's sinking with no animation, with no movement and i catch a lot of fish by just casting out letting the fly settle and watching that that level line where it enters the water for any kind of indication of a strike and then if you see a twitch or if the line starts to move suspiciously just come tight to it and nine times out of ten you're rewarded with a fish on the other end what about you tj how do you fish yeah so um i try to actually have a kebari that's uh with a white front towards the eye so i can actually see it a good foot or two below. So it kind of like the essentially what gets hidden by the reverse hackle? Yeah. Like just the hand? That's it. Yeah the white head. So that's I'm a one fly guy and my fly has white on the front so I designed it so I could see it and I can see it about two feet under it starts getting murky after that but during the cold season they're typically low they're not coming up to the top so I let it sink for as long as I feel I'm not going to really get stuck in the weeds and then I'll slowly start pulsing it to the top of the surface and normally I'll catch one there and but if it's summertime and it's sunny and they're coming right up to the top it's funny you'll cast out there and you'll see five to ten bluegill all surrounding your little kebari that's in the water and the fastest one wins the worm comes up and snags it it's it's funny watching them all attack a fly and they're timid they'll kind of sit around the fly and one will get a little close and all of a sudden the bigger one typically would come and slam it and take it. Nice. So you started talking about the fly. So since you started talking about your fly, you're like putting a little white spot on the, on the head so you can see it as it sinks. Uh, is that the only fly you use or do you try different flies? Uh, tell us a little bit more about your fly selection. I've been one fly practically from day one. So I always use my same fly that I tie all the time and, um, yeah, Is that the Siberian? Nope, the salt and pepper. Are they shio, kusho?

30:37Shio kusho. kebari, which is salt and pepper kebari. So white front, black back, that's where you get the salt and pepper. I've got a black and white hackle that I tie into it so it's all black and white. And I just felt that if they're harping on white, they'll see the white. If they're harping on black, they go for the black. So I have both colors in there for the fish to hopefully be attracted to one of them. that's a great idea yeah that's uh you know i kind of like having a couple of flies in my box that are contrasting like one is black one is white but yeah like i would imagine from a fish point of view they might be keyed in on a white or like just a light color right or a black so that uh that's a great idea that's why our mano kebari might be a good match because it's light but it's got a little bit of darkness to it too um so i've we we sell a lot of a monocobari So it's a good match, too, for a one fly. And I'm assuming that Bart's going to tell us a little bit more about flies. Maybe not. Maybe you just use one fly. But tell us a little bit more about it. I am a fly tire.

31:39So I do not just stick to one particular pattern. In fact, I have far too many flies than I'll ever use. But I enjoy fly tying. So fly fishing gives me an opportunity to use these patterns. So for panfish, I do enjoy using cabari-style flies. In fact, during the last couple seasons, one of the most effective warm water patterns that I fished, it's a really strange fly that was developed by Harry Murray. He is a fly shop owner from Edinburgh, Virginia, and he developed a fly called the James Wood Special. And this fly was an adaptation of a bonefish fly, I think from the 1940s, 1950s. And it's a really bizarre looking fly. It has a yellow chenille body with a sparse white bucktail wing and a bright blue head. And it was designed to imitate a baby bluegill or a baby sunfish.

32:43And to my eye, this fly looks nothing like a bluegill or a sunfish, but the fish seem to have a different opinion of it. And they seem very attractive, that particular color scheme. So I shrunk that pattern down and I created a kebari-style fly out of it. It has a bright blue head, a white hackle tied in a reverse style with a yellow thread body. And that is an absolute killer on panfish of all types, whether it's crappie, bluegills, pumpkin seeds. They all seem to really like that color combination. But I fish a lot of standard kabar patterns. I really enjoy fishing traditional soft tackle patterns for panfish. They're probably some of my most effective flies. And I will actually fish a lot of, when conditions are right, I'll fish a lot of topwater flies. I've created some some flies over the years that are light enough to cast on a tenkara rod but still provide good surface action and so I run the gamut from from fishing small streamers to top water to subsurface flies I'll fish everything on a tenkara rod. Does size matter? It's really I'm always surprised that the size of a fly that these fish can fit in their mouths I've caught some very very large bluegill while fishing exclusively for largemouth bass I will traditionally fish flies as large as size six and have no problems taking a large panfish on these flies but I'm really limited when fishing a tenkara rod you know you are somewhat limited to the size of the fly that you can use so when fishing tank car my flies tend to run on the small side so I'll try to make sure to work I will make sure that I post a link to your website and fish on the fly on the tenkarausa.com forward slash podcast page so you can see more of Bart's posts and I'll try to find a photo of that James would fly as well I actually can get a photo to you I got a great photo perfect so we'll get that and post it on our website and maybe I'll try to find some more flies that Bart uses so people can refer to those as well yeah because I don't have much of a fly selection when I go it's like usually the you know just the standard you know tank out of flies that I always carry the ones that we sell on our website if I kind of find my way into other flies I'll use them as well so like last year my friend Tim back in Boulder he turned me on to this fly called the headstand I believe it's called I believe I am yeah it's kind of a cool fly kind of rides upside down with the hook facing up and he introduced me to that fly when we went carp fishing and we went to this canal close to home and mostly we're targeting carp but we can't see anything the water is really really marquee and I catch my first fish and it was a weird kind of pull and I was using a headstand fly but the first fish that I caught today was a very large bass was like five to six pound bass and completely different tug from a car very much but and so you worked on the bass and he worked on a carp a little bit later today and as a matter of fact I on our page on Facebook I made a live video when I was playing one of this fish is like hey look you work I do notice that though when I use smaller flies I catch a lot of small sunfish and bluebeel as As soon as I put a size eight or six on, those fish become bigger.

36:25So I don't know if the little guys tend to stay away or the big guy sees that bigger one, but the biggest sunnies I catch, eight to 12 inch, have always been on a big size eight oaky kebari or something a little bigger. And so if you want to catch a big one, yeah, I think the big ones really attract the big guys. Might be a great tip. Do you find the same thing though? Yeah, I do. Again, as I said, I fish a lot of size eight, lot of size six flies and I catch a lot of very sizable panfish on these flies and the I think you'll still get hits from the smaller fish yeah physically you have a difficult time getting that fly in our mouths yeah so larger fly definitely produce larger fish cool what other tips can we give people in terms of panfish or warm water fishing in general maybe is there anything else Well, the one thing I'd like to add, if they are introducing somebody to tenkara or fly fishing for the first time, putting a tenkara rod in their hands and putting them on a bluegill pond is probably the easiest way to introduce someone to fly fishing, introduce someone to catching fish.

37:34I started both my boys that way, and they're turning into very accomplished fly fishermen on their own now. But the bluegills and other panfish, they're very available to folks. They readily take a fly, and it'll really accelerate the learning curve, because in a very short period of time, you'll be able to present a fly to a lot of fish. You'll catch a lot of fish, so you'll get your fly presentation techniques down pat, and you'll get your fish landing skills squared away. And it's a great teaching tool. And they're hardy too. Bluegill are very hardy fish compared to trout. So it's typically when you're new and you're trying to, for the first time, take a hook out of a fish's mouth and safely put it away, I'm pretty much catch and release for everything. Bluegill are a little bit more hardy. You'd be surprised what they can withstand. You still try to get them in the water fast, but it gives that little bit more learning curve where you don't have to rush as much you can safely take the hook out of the mouth yeah fish handling is definitely yeah another skill that's good to learn on them but that that reminds me of a of a tip for our listeners to always carry a little uh hemostat or forceps with you when you go bluegill fishing i had one experience was taking somebody fishing and she brought like a whole little kit but she didn't have forceps and immediately became very quickly became apparent that it's going to be really hard to remove a fit in a hook from a bluegill without forceps because their mouths tend to be so small and they kind of suck it in and depending on how you catch them oftentimes they can take the flight deep really fast because they seem to suck the fly into their assholes so definitely he was that will help with that and and barbless hooks are an essential because of the fact that they take those hooks so deep sometimes to limit the damage to the fish you really just want to be able to reach in there with a pair of hemostats and slip the hook out as easily as possible and send them on their way. So there you go, barbless hooks and hemostats are absolutely essential for your penfish and I think all three of us are in agreement here. We're all running our heads.

39:42Nothing but barbless for everything. I feel bad as a fish that ever, it just take a little bit too long to land, even with a bluegeel. I treat them all with respect and you want to let them be free and have another kid come along and catch him oh and one more thing talking about handling the fish one thing if you have if you don't have much experience catching penfish like bluegills and sunny's in a pond be very aware that the top fin on the fish is gonna be very sharp so you have to learn how to handle it maybe there's videos I'll see if I can find something but essentially it's pretty simple their top gills kind of flare up when you're handling them. And you want to kind of slide your hand from the head towards the tail to keep those very sharp fins down as you do it. So don't try to just kind of grab it from the top because you're going to poke yourself and it can be very sharp, very painful. So just kind of slide your hand from the head towards the tail.

40:44Like brushing its hair back. There you go. That's a good way to put it. So that's important when you go out. or if you have a kid who's going to go fishing your kid is going to learn how to land the fish really fast and oftentimes they might try to grab it they have to be taught that part i had to be taught that one as a kid yeah they'd be nice little uh when the barbie hit you you know it oh yeah definitely well this is a pleasure guys talking to you about the you know wonders of panfish it's february 1st now so that makes me think that i mean we're kind of having our warm water fishing days because boulder has been so warm but pretty soon we're gonna have a runoff so i'm definitely going to be using this episode the tips that you shared um but yeah this is really fun thanks for talking i enjoyed it it's awesome and i should mention as well that uh we'll see which one comes out first but bart is going to be speaking to tom rosenbauer at the orvis podcast about the same topic so um tom is uh tom rosenbauer from orvis is an absolutely great interviewer he's gonna get a lot of information out of BART I'm sure that we might have not got here so when you listen to this take a look see if the episode is already up I'm gonna bet that my episode is gonna be out first so you may have to wait a little bit of time but yeah so if you're interested in more information about this visit us on the web tenkarausa.com forward slash podcast and I'll put all the things that we touched upon here in terms of flies and Bart's website.

42:19And one of the Orvis podcasters I'll put it in there as well. But thanks so much for listening. And this is the Tenkara Cast. Cheers. Cheers. Should I use that introduction? Yes, absolutely. We can share it at the end. At the end you can kind of say, here's something that we did that made us all crack up. People will want to have it on their rotation on their iPhone. What do you want us to talk about? Hello. What do you want us to talk about? Hello. I'd like to extend a special thank you to Nick Ogawa, also known as Takenobu. Check out his music at takenobumusic.com. We'll be posting links to any references we made in this podcast, such as Takenobu's music, on our website, www.tenkarausa.com forward slash podcast. And until next time on a Tenkara Cast.