Finally the fish are starting to bite on Lake Geneva!

The panfish are just incredible right now, so if you have kids, now is a great time to get them out fishing with you.  The action is almost non-stop.  This past week I caught an 11 inch sunfish and bluegill so it’s not all about action, there are also some quality fish to be had.

It has been hard to get live bait past all the panfish to catch the smallmouth bass.  I saw most of the beds in 10-12 ft of water.  Belvidere Park and the Military Academy had most of the fish.  I was using a split shot rigged nightcrawlers and small plastics.  Green pumpkin grubs seemed to work the best.

Largemouth bass are in the shallows also spawning at this time.  Look for the fish in Geneva Bay or by Trinkes.  I caught some on split shot rigged nightcrawlers and a split shot rigged with a 4 inch Zoom lizard.  The best depth seemed to be 3-5 ft with scattered weeds and a hard sand bottom.

Rock Bass can be caught just about anywhere on the lake.  You can catch as many as you have nightcrawlers for.  The best depth seems to be the 8-10 ft range.  The highest concentration of them that I found was in Fontana.  You don’t need anything special  to catch them, just a hook and some live bait.

Perch can be found by the Military Academy and by Colemans Point.  I’ve been catching them on nightcrawler pieces fished on a single hook with a very light weight.  Again the problem is catching some fish that are over 6 inches long.  I think you can catch bigger ones if you use minnows.  When fishing with minnows, I will always fish them on a slip bobber rig.

Bluegills are in the 4-5 ft depth range.  They can be caught on leaf worms fished beneath a bobber.  The best location is by Trinkes and in Geneva Bay.  A lot of the bluegills were in the 8-9 inch range, like I said earler, I did catch several over 10 inches this week as well.