Outdoors With Mat Taylor
Too hot for perch? Never

Former Soil Conservation Service employee and longtime writer Mat Taylor offers his outdoors column for Dispatch Record readers. He can be contacted at (254) 518-2262 or via e-mail at mntaylor@agristar.net.

I don't have to tell you it is hot and dry, and the area could sure use a nice soaking rain. It seems the summertime weather pattern is in place, and it will take something like a strong tropical disturbance in the Gulf to bring us some good precipitation.

One summer activity kids and adults can participate in is perch fishing. By perch, I mean bluegills and other members of the sunfish family.

Sunfish usually can be caught in any stream, river, pond or lake. Although you can use fancy gear, all one really needs is a cane pole, line, small hook, sinker and a cork. Worms are the most popular bait.

According to one survey, less than one percent of licensed Texas anglers say they "prefer" to catch bluegill and other sunfish. Nevertheless, sunfish are a vital part of many freshwater fisheries nationwide, including Texas. Even though many anglers will not admit it, they will readily fish for perch when nothing else is biting.

I enjoy fishing for sunfish very much. The farm pond on our family ranch has a good supply of bluegills. Recently, my wife and I have gone to the pond in the late afternoons, and using worms we have caught a number of bluegills and other sunfish up to one pound.

I fish with an ultra-light spinning rod and reel with four-pound test line. Bluegills provide plenty of fight pound for pound and even a small bluegill on an ultra-light outfit seems like a five-pound bass.

In lieu of bait, I usually fish with a small 4-inch crme plastic worm and have caught many perch and even bass with it. Other good artificial baits are beetle spins, small spinning lures and small jigs.

When bluegills are biting, you can catch them on almost anything. I have even used bologna or small bits of wieners and have caught fish.

While bluegills -- also called bream, perch, sunfish and sun perch -- are the most popular member of the sunfish family, there are several other species. These include green sunfish (also called goggle eyes), long ear sunfish, red breast sunfish, red ear sunfish and warmouths (also called goggle eyes and rock bass). Most anglers call them all perch, bream or panfish.

Bluegills may be recognized from other sunfish by the dark spot at the base of the dorsal fin, vertical bars on their sides and a relatively small mouth. The back and upper sides are usually dark olive green blending to lavender, brown, copper or orange on the sides, and reddish-orange or yellow on the belly.

Sunfish begin spawning when the water temperature reaches about 70 degrees, with spawning peaking in May or June but continuing until water temperatures cool in the fall.

Because of the long spawning season, bluegills have a very high reproductive potential that often results in overpopulation, especially in farm ponds with low fishing pressure. Therefore, you do not have to worry about catch and release; you can keep enough for a fish fry. Most sunfish make good table fare.

On a recent trip to our pond, I caught something that disturbed me. While fishing for bluegills, I landed a polliwog. What is a polliwog? That is a local name for a yellow bullhead catfish. They are also called mud cats and chucklehead cat. By any name, they are not considered a game fish. The small catfish also have very sharp fins and can inflict a painful sting.

If by some means they get into a body of water such as a pond, they can reproduce quickly and overpopulate a pond, cutting down on the production of channel catfish and largemouth bass.

Bullheads rarely reach edible size, and they are not generally considered an important game fish or very good to eat. I have never eaten a polliwog and do not plan to unless I get very hungry.

My family will not have to consider what we want to do with the pond. An extreme remedy would be to apply rotenone and kill all the fish then restock the pond at a later date. First, we are going to try to trap as many bullheads as we can. Only time will tell what we need to do next. Any suggestions?