 Well, it's that time of the week again for another segment of Fishing Tips. This week, Ray talks about pan fishing. Tonight I'd like to talk a little bit about pan fishing. It is the greatest way to get kids interested in fishing and just to have a little bit of a plug here. Across America, there are more and more organizations trying to get young people into fishing. Kids who fish are kids who don't get into trouble. And the easiest fish to try to catch and learn how to fish are the pan fish. And in the early spring and May and June, we see the pan fish coming out of the deeper water into the shallower water when the water's warming up. And people think, well, they're always going in to lay their eggs, they're not going in to lay their eggs early. They're going in to feed. They're going in to try to eat things that are along those shorelines. And then when the water temperature gets to a certain level, then they, in fact, do go in and start making nests and laying their eggs in those nests, especially the crappies. Sunfish are later than the crappies, but it's a great time to fish those, because you can visually fish them. You can go into shallow water and you can see them in the water. And one of the easy ways to just start finding out if the fish will be biting is just to take a rod and any kind of a small jig. This happens to be a little puddle jumper that we have on here today. But you can start out by not using a bobber. Just go out into the water and start casting along and seeing if you can find them. And it's a very easy way to find out if they're biting or not. And if they aren't, you can use this kind of device with a small minnow. You can put a bobber on it and try that technique also. Later in the summer, this is a very effective technique to get off the edge of the weed line and just maybe put on a trolling motor or your big engine if you need to do that. Go very, very slowly and cast crankbaits. And the crankbaits I have here are bigger than I would use. And these are great ways to start covering ground and finding out if the panfish are active. And what I do is when I catch a panfish on a crankbait, I'll pull my boat in and stop on that spot and then I'll use maybe bobbers or just fish vertically and see if I can find a school of those fish that bite. So don't overlook little tiny crankbaits and you'll be amazed sometimes how big you can catch a bass or even a northern on these. Lots of things, eat little things. And crankbaits are a very effective way to go out into the woods or into the water. You can go in the woods too and find out where those fish are at. I'm Ray Gildaw with Aniswag Aijli. If you've enjoyed this segment of Lakeland News, please consider making a tax deductible contribution to Lakeland Public Television.