Big rivers are often overlooked for their panfish potential, especially late in the summer, but they can often hold large, aggressive fish. (Photo courtesy of St. Croix)
August 15, 2025
By Matt Straw
While fishing for smallmouths on the Upper Mississippi River one day, my companions and I found ourselves suddenly scrambling for panfish gear when a squad of immense bluegills surged past the boat, leaping clear of the water. Our 7-foot ultralights were soon snapped into tight arcs as 4-pound line slipped off the spools. Thanks to those willing bluegills, it ended up being a very memorable day on the water.
River panfish are tough customers. They battle current and develop muscle that their lake-bound cousins don’t. Bluegills, already known for their pugilistic qualities, become downright difficult to land in moving water. Anglers who’ve only experienced still-water crappies are often surprised at how sporty they can be in rivers.
Much of this great panfishing action happens in or around backwater areas, which can be small or vast and difficult to navigate. Want to get lost in the bayou without leaving your living room? Use Google Earth to trace the Mississippi along the Wisconsin-Minnesota border. Zoom in close and start scrolling along both sides of the river. Scroll all the way to Louisiana if you want. It’s mind-boggling.
River backwaters are often wildly fertile. Sediments carried by floods create a crazy quilt of substrates. Insects thrive in the various forms of cover. Submerged aquatic weeds (like curly-leaf pondweed, coontail and hydrilla) and wood provide ample habitat for small aquatic invertebrates and a wide range of minnows. Weeds can choke backwaters in summer, providing homebody panfish with cover you can’t pull them out of. Sometime in June most years, the biggest bluegills we hook in backwaters dive into the weeds. Their inaccessibility means fishing pressure is light to nonexistent, which improves the size structure of backwater panfish considerably over those in local lakes.
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Whether the individual area is large or small, various backwaters on the country’s biggest river systems represent some of the most overlooked panfish bonanzas in the nation. As complex as these areas are, determining locations for the hottest summer bites is purely a matter of timing, water level and a few simple observations.
Emergent and submerged weeds in backwater areas often hold large panfish in the summer, especially when water is high in the main river. (Photo courtesy of St. Croix) FOLLOW THE FISH It’s important to note that crappies and bluegills can’t handle heavy current, so their movements often revolve around avoiding it or limiting their exposure to it. During a normal summer, water levels in rivers decline and currents diminish. That’s when panfish enter the river proper. If water levels are higher than normal, panfish skirt the boundaries of backwaters along the main channel.
Backwaters are out of the main river’s current, and that’s where panfish want to be when the water is cold in winter and spring. Bluegills and crappies spawn in the same backwaters in water temperatures ranging from around 65 to 72 degrees, though extremely hot weather might force spawning to occur in warmer water. Because anglers find panfish in backwaters in spring, they often go back in summer and are surprised to find the panfish are gone. In terms of calendar periods for panfish, August might represent post-spawn up North and full-blown summer down South.
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Marty Hahn, a walleye and panfish guide on Pools 3 and 4 along the Minnesota-Wisconsin border
(mississippiriverwalleyes.com ), confirms these trends. He says that when summer heat draws the water down, and the current in the main river is moving at less than 1 mph, that’s where crappies and bluegills will be. While the fish use the main river in late summer, Hahn adds that when water levels are normal, they still typically need and utilize current breaks—fallen trees, wing dams, rock piles, bars and other obstructions. He says panfish love wood cover in rivers, especially deadheads, laydowns and log jams. Sometimes, though, if the river is low enough and the current weak enough, he’s even seen panfish hold away from current breaks on the outside of bends, where the current is strongest.
Wisconsin DNR Mississippi River Habitat Specialist Jeff Janvrin has conducted netting surveys of panfish in the Mississippi. During the survey, the nets verified that river bluegills can utilize almost every type of habitat available in a river during summer, depending on water levels and other conditions. In summer, he says you might find bluegills near downed cover, behind wing dams in the main river or in vegetation just inside backwaters with normal or high current/water levels. However, during low-water events, he suggests panfish may be sitting right along main-river shorelines fully exposed to current.
As previously noted, when water is higher than normal, look outside the main current around backwaters that border the main river. This is also where Hahn says panfish retreat to in the fall when water temperatures drop back into the high 60s (he notes that summer surface temps top out around 80 degrees and start falling again in August). He says pin minnows (aka lake chubsuckers) and river shiners also push into the backwaters around this time, so panfish could be following them out of the current.
In Pool 4, Lake Pepin and similar reservoirs created whenever rivers are dammed, Hahn says that crappies tend to suspend when the water is hot in months like July and August. He adds that when the water starts to cool (usually, down into the 60s) fish move to riprap and rocky shorelines. He notes that this shift to rocky areas—riprap, reefs, rock piles and rocky shorelines—typically happens at some point in September.
By late fall, though, he says most panfish have moved out of the main river and into backwaters where they will winter. Wisconsin DNR tracking studies show that wintering bluegills and crappies move into the deepest holes in a backwater. However, my fishing companions and I have sometimes found crappies in the main river through October if they can find pools greater than 20 feet deep. When this happens, we vertically jig them with ice-fishing spoons—but those pools must be immediately adjacent to backwaters where they winter.
During periods of low water and reduced flow, panfish often hang out closer to, or even within, the main river. Look to wing dams (1), laydowns (2), logjams, rock piles (3) and rock-strewn banks (4) along the main river itself when facing these conditions. In very weak flow, fish hold near the edges of these structures. With higher water levels and faster flow, panfish shift either closer to backwater areas or move within them to escape stronger currents. If current is normal or moderate, they’ll tuck in more behind wing dams (5) and deadfalls (6) or skirt backwater areas (7). When water is higher and current much stronger, panfish hold in and around brushpiles (8), weedbeds (9) and laydowns (10) farther within backwater locations. (Peter Sucheski illustration) PUT BAITS ON ’EM With most anglers chasing other species or targeting panfish on lakes, which are usually easier to navigate, pressure on river panfish is often light in late summer. As a result, river bluegills and crappies are frequently unwary, willing biters. Even setting aside the lack of angling pressure, river panfish are already relatively aggressive by nature. These two factors together make them vulnerable to overt tactics, especially after the water begins to cool down into the high-60-degree range. When water is in the 70- to 80-degree range, though, panfish usually respond better to subtle tactics.
Even in current, always have float rods ready. Terminate the rigging with 1/80- to 1/32-ounce jigs, depending on current strength. Tip jigs with a crappie minnow, angleworm or panfish leech under a slip float or Double X Tackle A-Just-A Bubble . Scented panfish plastics from Berkley and Northland Fishing Tackle often trigger just as many hits. Suspending baits under a float is deadly in August wherever river panfish exist, be it in the backwaters or along main-river shorelines.
When summer heat prevailed, the late, great, Hall-of-Fame walleye pro Tommy Skarlis and I would drift downstream, the boat sideways to the current, then anchor front-and-back right atop a wing dam when we came across one.
“Approach on the upstream side of a wing dam and anchor so the boat rests right above the shallow rocks,” Skarlis would say. “That’s the best way to access the slower water on the downstream side. Cast a 1/32- to 1/16-ounce jig tipped with a crappie minnow, panfish leech, angleworm or a soft swimbait downstream, allow it to sink to bottom, drag it a foot and pause.”
When the water starts to cool, my fellow anglers and I tip 1/32- to 3/32-ounce Gopher Tackle Mushroom Head Jigs with 2- to 3-inch soft swimbaits like the Keitech Easy Shiner , Z-Man StingerZ or the Great Lakes Finesse Dropkick Shad . When panfish move to rocky shorelines and riprap, a soft swimbait can be retrieved slowly, sliding along just above the rocks to avoid snags.
When approaching log jams, Skarlis would drift up against the timber and jig vertically down through the wood with 1/16-ounce jigs tipped with minnows, leeches or small plastic worms. We sometimes reached out and dropped baits under slip-float rigs right next to big timber. Skarlis often put one foot on a log to move the boat along it after covering a spot. He made his own jigs with Do-it Molds, using jig hooks he could straighten out when snagged in the wood. An 8-foot, light- to medium-light spinning rod let us reach out and cover more water from each spot. Use at least 6-pound-test line, though, as some walleyes and catfish down there top 10 pounds.
As waters continue to cool in September, always search those border areas along the edge of the current between backwaters and the main flow. Cast little swimbaits where possible. Where the weeds are too thick, pitch baits under slip-float rigs to the pockets in the vegetation.
On rivers, you never really know what you might hook. Smallmouths, walleyes, cats, sheepshead, panfish—it’s a multi-species carnival. One thing is certain: A lot of those under-the-radar panfish will be world-class—and they fight like demons.
This article was featured in the August issue of Game & Fish magazine. Click to subscribe .
