Jackson: Sunfish always put up a good fight

I thought Phil Wein was going to fall into the water because he was laughing so hard that he lost his balance.

I watched him fight a fish while trying to regain his balance. His light rod bowed over like a tree branch in a tornado.

And then up it came, the fish that was not the smallmouth we expected but rather the largest redear sunfish I had seen in years.

And then I had a hit that almost jerked the rod out of my hand. It was another redear and this one weighed close to pound.

Phil and I kept laughing throughout the catch-fest until we decided to take a break.

Spence Petros had informed me earlier in the week that he had run into schools of jumbo sunfish on Lake Geneva, so off we went to once again join guide Billy Heim.

I knew Billie was also a sunfish and bluegill nut, but it wasn't until we started dropping chunks of nightcrawlers rigged on drop-shot setups that I saw how excited he got while drifting over the schools.

Actually, our original mission was to locate and catch smallmouth bass. In failing that in grand style, we had to settle for a bunch of largemouth bass instead. And then we decided to move and creep into an area that supposedly held those big sunnies.

The redear sunfish is a freshwater fish native to the southeastern United States. But for us in the Midwest, one would quickly claim the redear is ours alone from the start of its existence.

Since it is a popular sport fish, it has been introduced to bodies of water all over North America. And according to some anglers who chase these superior fighting fish, the redear is king of the sunfish clan.

The redear is also a family member to a largemouth bass and bluegill, as well as a white bass.

The real joy comes when an angler uses an ultralight or light rod. My choice was a 7 ½-foot light Grandt Custom spinning model with a small reel spooled with 4-pound mono.

The late Chuck Thompson, a Mount Prospect retiree and bluegill-crazed fisherman, would never tell me where he caught the monster bluegills he proudly talked up. But when I discovered 10-inch 'gills caught and released from several DuPage County industrial park ponds, I shared that info with him. Like Chuck, I kept him and others in the dark to the exact location.

In this latest situation, the jumbo sunfish were taken in 10-feet right on the edge of coontail weeds. Tiny bits of nightcrawlers on small hooks in a drop shot rig produced scads of jumbo sunfish as well as some Lake Geneva largemouth bass along with tons of belly laughs and a little bit of good old suntan.

• Contact Mike Jackson at angler88@comcast.net, catch his radio show 7-9 a.m. Sundays on WGCO 1590-AM (live-streamed at www.1590WCGO.com) and get more content at www.mikejacksonoutdoors.com.