Lake Eufaula Summer Panfish Special

Eddie Whitehead guides on Lake Eufaula and is on the water about 100 days a year. He loves to catch bluegill, shellcracker and crappie. There’s a full moon on July 20, so expect some bream to be on the beds.

Although Lake Eufaula is known as “The Bass Capitol of the World,” a smorgasbord of panfish await your hook there in July. You might struggle to catch a limit of bass in the heat of the summer, but anglers can fill a cooler with tasty panfish like bluegill, shellcracker and crappie this month.

With 46,000 acres of water and 860 miles of shoreline, this big lake has many acres of shallow water. Much of the shallows hold grass and lily pads… yes, ideal habitat for bass—but also for panfish. The shallows teem with bluegill, shellcracker feed amongst the shellbeds on sandy flats, and big crappie take up summer residency on the deeper river and creek ledges.

Eddie Whitehead grew up fishing Lake Eufaula and other local waters with his grandfather. They typically fished for anything that would bite. After a career as a firefighter and EMT with the Bertha, Alabama fire department, Eddie retired a few years ago and still lives in Bertha, about 35 minutes from the ramps at Lakepoint.

He started guiding on Eufaula a couple years ago and loves to help his client catch limits of bream and crappie. Fishing about 100 days a year helps him keep up with what the fish are doing and how to catch them consistently.

“July fishing offers good catches of bluegill, shellcracker and crappie,” Eddie said.

You have to adjust your fishing to different patterns for each species, but it is easy to catch all three in one day.

Bluegill

The week of July 20 will be a full moon, and that will be the best time to catch bluegill. Although you can go around the edges of the lake and catch bluegill on just about any day, you will catch more and bigger fish on the July full moon when the bluegill are bedding.

Eddie finds bluegill beds by looking for them with his side-scan sonar. The beds will show up on it as dish or saucer shapes on the bottom in 1 to 3 feet of water. Sandy bottoms are the most likely places to find bluegill beds, and his experience on the lake helps him narrow his search.

If you are new to fishing Lake Eufaula, begin by idling the mouths of coves and pockets and watch for reeds on the bank and lily pads in the water. Aquatic vegetation often grows in sandy soil, which is also where bream will bed. You may find bluegill beds back in pockets and in small creeks, but many of them have filled in with muddy silt and muck, making them less attractive for bedding bluegill.

If you don’t have side scan, run the shallows standing up on your trolling motor and use the original livescope—your eyes—to spot the beds. The water is typically clear enough in July to spot them visually. And if you catch a whiff of a “watermelon” smell, look closely. You can often smell the bream beds when you are near them or downwind.

Eddie fishes out of Lakepoint State Park, and there are good areas in Cowikee Creek, as well as in pockets on the river in that area. Toward the dam there is more sand and even more bedding areas in Pataula Creek, Sandy Branch, Sandy Creek, Gin Creek and pockets and small creeks in the area.

When Eddie finds bream beds, his Humminbird 360 scan will help pinpoint his casts. You can sometimes see the bluegill on the beds. Eddie likes to anchor 40 to 50 feet off the beds and cast to them. He will slowly reel his bait along until he hooks a bluegill. It usually does not move far.

Spot Lock on his trolling motor can be used if the wind does not turn the boat—you don’t want trolling motor prop wash to hit the beds. Stay far enough away that it does not stir them up. You can let your boat drift against the bank casting distance from the beds to stay in one place and cast parallel to the bank.

For bedding bluegill, Eddie keeps a tube of crickets and a bucket of red worms handy. He ties a No. 6 long-shank hook to 6-lb. line on his spinning rod and reel. A cork is adjusted to keep his bait just off the bottom, and a split-shot is crimped on the line 6 inches above the hook, if needed. Bluegill will hit both worms and crickets, but Eddie leans toward using crickets most of the time.

Eddie likes a 6-foot spinning rod and does not put them in holders for bluegill on the bed. The action is usually too fast. He likes a little breeze but strong wind creates boat handling and casting problems. Current really does not make a difference when fishing for bluegill on the bed—they’re going to bite.

You can often catch dozens of bluegill off one bed. And Eddie will come back to the same bed later—bluegill will replenish them day to day. But it is best to find several beds since the average size may go down the more bluegill you catch off one bed.

Although he has never had a request to take a fly fisherman out, Eddie says he is willing. Setting up on a bluegill bed during the full moon in July with a popping bug or rubber cricket would be a blast.

Eddie “dragging” a sandy flat for July shellcracker.

Shellcracker

Shellcracker, or redears, don’t bed every summer month like bluegill do. Shellcracker do almost all their bedding in April or May, but Eddie has a method to consistently catch good-sized shellcracker all summer. He seeks out their feeding places.

Many of the shallow, sandy flats off the channels have mussel beds on them, a favorite food of shellcracker. Again, Eddie has located good ones through time on the water, but a good GPS map and sonar will show you likely places.

Find flats about 10 feet deep just off the deeper channels. Deep water close by is important. Shellcracker like to hold deep but move up on the flats to eat mussels and then move back.

A good sonar will show you the harder bottoms where mussels live.  You can sometimes see scattered shellcracker, as well as other species, on these flats with your sonar, side scan or 360 scan, and a forward-facing sonar will confirm them.

When Eddie finds a good flat, he gets his boat in position and turns his trolling motor to its lowest speed. He wants his boat to barely move. He has to adjust for the wind and current, trolling into it and adjusting speed until the boat is barely moving.

Red wigglers are Eddie’s choice for shellcracker, and he makes sure he has a good supply by buying them in bulk from 4R Worm Farm in Dothan. He gets 500 to 1,000 worms at a time and has a special refrigerator at his house to keep them until needed.

No cork is used for drifting for shellcracker, but he uses the same rods, reels and line as he uses for bluegill. Eddie threads a worm on his No. 6 hook and puts a small split-shot about 6 inches above the hook to keep it on the bottom. Use the smallest weight you can based on wind, current and depth.

Eddie puts four to six rods in rod holders and eases along with the worms dragging on the bottom. If you catch a shellcracker, you know you are in the right place. You might feel weight on your line and reel in a mussel shell, which also shows that you are in the right area.

As you drift and watch your rod tips, you will learn to tell the difference between a hard bottom where mussels live and a mucky bottom where you are wasting your time. Eddie says he catches a lot of catfish and spotted bass in the same areas.

If you catch a mussel shell like the one below, you know you are in the right area for shellcracker.

Shellcracker school on the feeding areas, so when you catch one you will usually catch several. If you troll through the school and catch a couple, swing around and make more passes through the same area for more fish.

Early morning and late afternoons are best for shellcracker. You can try for them in the morning and then go for bluegill if they are bedding, or go catch crappie during the day.

Crappie 

Crappie are probably the easiest summertime panfish to find at Lake Eufaula and the most consistent to catch if the bluegill are not bedding. Ride river and creek ledges, following the lip in 15 to 20 feet of water, and look for wood structure. The structure can be man-made or natural.

Eddie prefers natural wood, and his favorite place is a big tree that grew on the ledge and fell over with its limbs extending over the channel. A key to any wood is that the bottom drops off into deep water and the top of the brush or tree comes within about 10 feet of the surface.

Unlike the other panfish, current moving through the brush or tree really affects the crappie bite. A slight breeze can help the bite and definitely keeps you cooler, but too much wind makes it very hard to keep your boat in position in the open water you will be fishing.

When you find suitable brush, keep your boat right on top of it and lower a jig or minnow down to the fish. If you can’t tell the depth with your electronics where the fish are holding, start with your bait 10 feet deep and slowly lower it until you get a bite.

In the hot summer, Eddie likes small shiner minnows and has a couple of aerated ice chests in his boat to keep them lively. He also likes crappie jigs and gets his in bulk from Tex Maxwell in Cochran. Some days either minnows or jigs will draw more bites, so try both.

Eddie insists that he is only fishing with a lively minnow on his hook. He will hook a minnow through the lips on a crappie hook and pinch a split-shot 6 inches above it to take it down. Use the smallest weight you can to get your bait down based on current and wind. Check your minnow often—if it dies, switch to a lively one.

Eddie has a box of jigs he calls his “Eufaula” box. It contains 10 compartments with jig heads in colors ranging from brown to bright pink. Bodies are in eight more compartments, and it stands out that all have some variation of chartreuse in them.

With his Livescope transducer on a separate shaft, Eddie can put his trolling motor in Spot Lock mode then scan the tree to locate the exact position of the crappie. And if he sees they are not reacting to his bait when it is suspended straight down, he will pitch the bait out and let it swing through them.

Pitching the bait works best with a jig. And with Livescope, you can watch your bait and the fish and see how they react. You can make sure you are putting your bait in front of the fish. And if they don’t react, you know to try different colors or sizes. It helps you know when it is time to move on to another school of fish.

A quest for crappie benefits from a proper jig box, like Eddie’s “Eufaula box.”

Eddie warns that some fishermen give up too fast on a brushpile or tree. He finds that the crappie will often get boat shy for a few minutes and then get used to the boat sitting over them and start biting. With electronics, you can tell if the fish are there and how long you need to stay. About 15 minutes without a bite usually means it is time to move on.

Even without the most modern electronics you can find wood cover the old-fashioned way, trolling until you get hung in it. And you can experiment with colors and sizes until you catch fish to tell you what to use. Electronics just make it much easier.

Although he has all the latest electronics, Eddie keeps his fishing as simple as possible. You can catch all three kinds of panfish on Eufaula right now following Eddie’s methods, even if you have limited electronics.

Eddie offers full and half-day trips for any or all three species. And he will filet the fish. His goal is a limit of 50 bream and 30 crappie in a full-day trip.

Book a trip by calling 334.441.8503, or go to www.eufaulalakeguides.com.

This picture of Eddie’s FFS screen shows a cloud of crappie. Electronics will also reveal bream beds that are too deep to see or when the water is stained.