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This is probably a dumb question, but I'll ask it anyway. When fishing in a stream for sunfish such as bluegills, should I read the water just as I would read it for trout -- fish current seams, eddies, pools, tails of pools, etc. -- or do sunfish have stream preferences different from trout?
Sunfish don't like working for food or fighting current. Focus on sheltered quiet waters. You can fish a seam by the edge of the quiet water and a panfish may come out to attack, but it'll be waiting in the still waters.
I fish small streams a lot for bream and mostly find them in deeper pools and around any woody cover,and mostly they are caught on bead head nymphs under a indicator,not too many on dries unlike on lakes and ponds.
Sunfish like structure, not current. Woody debris, rocks, drop-offs, et... Sometimes they hover r ever beds of twigs and leaves in calm water. The debris beneath them can harbor large numbers of nymphs. Good luck.
Ed
When they are bedded up (usually several times in the summer down here) you can smell the bed. Musky smell that you will realize is fishy.