Warmouth Fishing Tips

Warmouth fishing: In spite of being one of the larger panfish of the sunfish family, the warmouth is a shy fish. It prefers lakes or ponds with mud bottoms and containing a great many weeds, stumps, and other hiding places. This sunfish at maturity may reach a pound in weight and about a foot in length. Average size of warmouth caught by most anglers, however, is much smaller, but still a scrapper.

Warmouths will take artificial flies and are great sport on a fly rod. Most fly-rod fishing for warmouths is done early in the season before the weed growth in lakes and ponds makes landing the fish difficult. This fish will also take small surface lures; many are caught on small fly rod poppers.

Late in the season, the best method of catching warmouths is to use a cane pole to drop the bait into the openings in the weeds and haul the fish out before it becomes tangled in the vegetation. Worms can be used as bait, and minnows are good. The warmouth is carnivorous to a greater degree than most sunfish, and the main item of food in its diet is small fish. It also feeds on snails and crustaceans.

The warmouth prefers to build its spawning nest in silty mud or in mud containing weeds, sticks, and leaves. It particularly seeks out the quiet backwater lakes of larger rivers. Where possible, it will build its nest close to stumps, roots, and rocks. Unlike other sunfish, the warmouth isn't especially particular about water depth for spawning, but may spawn close to shore or in the middle of the lake.

The male guards the nest during spawning. Unlike other sunfish, once the eggs hatch the young fish are not guarded by the male who allows them to scatter immediately into dense weeds or other hiding places. The fry, feeding upon insects, reach up to 2 inches in length the first year. As they grow larger they add small fish to their diet and by the end of the third year reach maturity.

In areas where the warmouth is abundant it is a very popular sport fish. It is an edible fish, especially when caught in clean water, but is not considered as desirable in flavor as the rock bass or bluegill. Any fish that inhabits areas of mud bottom, heavy vegetation, and feeds on animals that live in the mud, will be less palatable than those living above clean gravel or a rock bottom.

Warmouths are quite often confused with rock bass due to coloration, markings, and similarity of habits. Many fishermen forget the field identification which distinguishes these two fish. A simple method of identification is to pull the stiff spines forward on the anal fin and count the number of sharp points-6 on the rock bass, only 3 on the warmouth.