It’s All About the Destination
Sunfish can be found pretty much everywhere throughout the United States, but big sunfish are much harder to come by. If you are looking for a good destination to target big sunfish, you need to look at bigger bodies of water and down south. There are plenty of big fish destinations up north, however, down south, the fish grow so much faster and there are plenty of bodies of water where anglers aren’t targeting these fish as much as they are targeting bass and crappie, so you may be able to find some big fish.
Upsize Just a Little Bit
You can’t upsize too much because their mouths are only so big, however, upsizing a little bit will usually work to catch bigger sunfish. A half nightcrawler works great for bigger fish. Bigger hair jigs, spoons and soft plastics also work well to bring the bigger fish in for a closer look, then if you use a piece of live bait to tip your bigger baits, you will often draw more strikes from much bigger sunfish.
Fish Deeper
You can usually find bigger sunfish by staying a little bit deeper than where the majority of the fish are being found. In the spring, the fish may be in 2 to 6 feet of water, however, the bigger fish will usually be found in the deeper part of that range. Same thing for the summer and fall when these fish may be anywhere from 6 to 20 feet deep. The bigger fish will most likely be found in the deeper part of that range as well.
Don’t Miss the Spawn
The spawn provides some awesome fishing for good numbers of sunfish and big fish when they come in shallow. This is one of the easiest times of the year to target big sunfish.
