Don’t call them "sunfish." That will only prove you’re neither a Florida native nor a longtime fisherman on our inland waters.

Around here, mixed catches of those small but feisty freshwater favorites are lumped under the label "bream," (pronounced like the brim of your hat). Individually, each one of them wears some more colorful name, if not several names.

So don’t call them sunfish.

Would you call a 10-pound largemouth bass a sunfish? Of course not. Yet black bass are members of the same family as bream. Maybe that’s why we never say sunfish—because in our heads bass and bream constitute entirely separate angling targets. True, we do often catch a bass or two while fishing for bream, and it certainly is not unusual to have a bream clobber a 6-inch bass plug. But we do not plan things that way. They happen while we are either bass fishing or bream fishing. Or maybe perch fishing. Speckled perch are in the family too, despite the fact that even Northerners don’t call them "sunfish." They call them "crappie" (pronounced crappie).

By way of sub-classification, members of the bream bunch are bluegill, redbreast, shellcracker, stumpknocker, and a couple of smaller and less popular species. Over in the perch category, the Florida vernacular recognizes only the speckled perch and the warmouth perch, although a few older—very old—North Florida Crackers still insist on saying "redbreast perch" instead of "redbreast bream." But that’s merely a generational squabble and seems to be self-resolving, inasmuch as more and more fishermen in both camps are content to just say "redbelly."

So much for technicalities. Now it’s on to catching and cooking, and since Florida panfish cookery can be summed up in one short phrase—"fried in cornmeal and served with hushpuppies"—that leaves only the catching.

When you go after bream, you are the 900-pound gorilla. You can do it any way you want to. The bream usually don’t seem to care. Like bigger species of fish, they too have their moods, but more often than not they are willing to bite nearly any kind of worm, larva or insect, plus any splashy or flashy little gadget you might tie on your line in hopeful imitation thereof. Nor do they care whether you yank them from the water with a pole, fly rod or a spinning outfit.

Earthworms are pretty productive baits everywhere, but a great many bream fishermen have always insisted on having different baits for different waters, or in different seasons. You can’t blame them. Wouldn’t it be boring if you always fished for bream with the same bait in the belief that no other would be any more productive? That would be like a bass fisherman staying happy with one lure that he throws into all waters, all depths, in all kinds of structure, all year long.

Some of the many popular bream baits, crickets for instance, are widely sold in shops and fishing camps. Others require not only considerable searching, but a pretty strong stomach. If some baits seem repulsive, take heart they will keep juvenile anglers busy and entertained, whether the fish are biting or not.

A couple of the very best bream baits are often available on site; that is, if the fisherman is willing to devote a little time and effort to their capture. One such is the freshwater shrimp, a tiny, translucent fellow that hides in the grassy vegetation of many Florida lakes. To catch them, you need only sweep up a mass of waterweed with a minnow net, and then paw through it and look for any shrimp it might contain. Do this a few dozen times (in a productive area) and you will have not only a day’s bait but the very best bait you could possibly choose for that lake. And in many rivers with accessible sandy bottoms, you can either wade or swim to gather mussels. Shellcrackers are so-named because they greedily crunch the shells of those tasty mollusks, but redbreast and bluegills like them just as much, although they do insist that you crack them first, before serving them up on a hook.

Among old-time Florida bream fishermen, insect larvae top the list of preferred baits. Most of these you have to dig up for yourself, sometimes literally. I’m thinking of various beetle grubs that lurk in dark places like rotting pine logs and soft earth.

Ranked even higher on the larvae scale are caterpillars. Having already outlined the classification of breams, I now must turn from ichthyology to entomology to tell you about all the butterfly and moth larvae that freshwater fishermen dote upon. You can skip the reference books. All fish-bait larvae are "worms" and are classified according to the trees upon which they live and dine while waiting to pupate and turn into beautiful flying creatures.

Worms on oak trees are oak worms; on pecan trees, pecan worms; on camphor trees, camphor worms. See how easy? All that’s necessary to gather your bait is to keep inspecting all the appropriate kinds of trees until you find one with many of its leaves nibbled to the stalk. Since the various worms generally appear at slightly different times over the course of summer and autumn, each appearance constitutes a "season" during which the biggest and best bream petulantly insist on being fed the caterpillar of the moment. The old-timers who firmly believe in such seasons will still go fishing with some other kind of bait, perhaps crickets or wigglers, when they have no choice, but they are never quite as confident. And, as we all are aware, confidence is just about the top requirement for catching fish.

At the top of the caterpillar pecking order is the catalpa worm—a fat, juicy, black-and-green fellow that is tough enough to stay on the hook through several catches, and often large enough to provide at least two baits. Its host tree is an ornamental that’s found in many city yards, providing the homeowner with a rich bait supply. In years past, it was not unknown for the possessor of a productive catalpa tree to build a sturdy fence or wall around his yard for the sole purpose of keeping his valuable worms safe from poachers.

Early in their development, catalpa worms are small enough to be used whole and singly. It’s later, however, when they reach their highest potential as bait. That’s when they grow so big they must be cut in half, and each half turned inside out before going on the hook. The inverting tool that’s always available is your thumb. You merely slip half the bisected worm over that appendage as if putting on the finger of a glove.

So where would one start using those baits? For an all-too-short part of every year, the most productive place by far is over a bream bed—a label that is usually taken to mean a whole bunch of beds jammed tightly together in a definable area. Both bluegills and shellcrackers are highly communal bedders in a great many lakes, with shellcrackers generally getting started in early spring and bluegills following a month or so later. The reason the beds are all bunched up is because only certain parts of the lake offer the necessary spawning environment—proper depth, bottom conditions or whatever.

At bedding times—around the full and new moons of the early warm months— bream fishing can take on a gold-rush aspect in heavily fished lakes, where known spawning areas often draw clusters of boats, packed so tightly, and with so many poles protruding, that from a distance the congregation resembles an immense porcupine. And if you happen to find a bed that isn’t already known, your discovery isn’t likely to remain a secret for long.

Things are a bit different in small rivers and creeks, where good spawning spots are generally easy for the fish to find. This means that redbreast bream, the dominant bream species in most of our fast-flowing streams, don’t need to crowd each other. Single beds are common, and although several redbreast beds can often be found in fairly close proximity to each other, it’s nothing comparable to the huge bedding areas that are so common in lakes.

Bedding bream are ready biters as a rule, and not very choosy about what they go after. Earthworms are effective and, along with grass shrimp where available, are easily the most popular bait in lakes. Crickets and caterpillars get the majority vote for stream fishing.

If you have carefully read the earlier descriptions of traditional natural baits, you will have guessed by now that most anglers of recent generations prefer to fish for their bream with artificial lures. Fly tackle and ultralight spinning outfits are both so consistently productive that an overall choice between them is impossible. Best to carry both and be prepared for day-by-day contingencies.

Small popping bugs are the mainstays of Florida fly fishermen. Usual sizes are No. 6 and No 8, although a larger No. 4, or occasionally even a No. 2, may be chosen when trying to fish selectively for large bream. Note the word "trying." The biggest bream are not at all reluctant to gulping tiny insects, real or fake. Anyway, though, a bigger bug might well plunk up an occasional bass for added excitement.

I have long felt that presentation and how you work the bug once it alights on the water are far more important than color and pattern, but I will get lots of argument on this point. Many bream fishermen swear that subtle differences in spots, stripes, or even the number and length of rubber legs can determine how much action the bug produces. At any rate, the most common fault of inexperienced bream-buggers is working the popper too fast and too noisily. The bug should be allowed to lie still for at least several seconds. Its first movement after that should be just the slightest of twitches, and then it should rest for several more seconds. If there’s no response by that time, a loud pop or two before picking up for another cast couldn’t hurt and will occasionally pay off.

As popular as poppers in some circles is the rubber spider, which is fished in quite similar fashion but, of course, cannot be made to pop. I particularly like those sponge-bodied spiders that gradually absorb water and start sinking after a few seconds of lying on top. For that matter, various other sinking lures, such as nymphs and tiny streamers will often knock the bream when poppers fail.

Even if you don’t fly fish, you can still catch plenty of bream on artificials, either by trolling or casting. It has been mentioned that a hungry bream is not shy about smacking bass lures, but you couldn’t expect to fill a stringer by casting a king-size spinnerbait or a 9-inch worm. On the other hand, you might easily fill a stringer with either of those lures in miniature sizes. My all-time favorite bream-getter is an in-line spinner weighing one-eighth of an ounce. I have used many brands of these over the years, more than enough to determine that it’s the design that works, not the name. A couple of the many well-known examples are the Panther Martin and Rooster Tail.

As much as I dote on the little in-line spinners, however, I must admit that tiny offset spinners, of which the Beetle Spin is probably the landmark example, produce equally well, if not better, and have become even more popular among Florida panfish experts. Lures like the Beetle Spin and its many competitors are versatile too, inasmuch as they feature both a spinner and some sort of insect imitation trailing it, such as a plastic catalpa worm or a rubber spider. Whenever you get the idea that some other bug will entice more strikes, you can change the trailer easily.

So the choice is yours: pole or rod, bait or lure. Or mix them all up if you wish. The non-fishing public holds a mental picture of bream fishermen as freckle-faced kids with hand-hewn poles and home-dug bait. While that image is not entirely invalid, it fails to take into account all the grownup kids who still go about the business, but in a more elaborate manner.

It isn’t hard to guess which age group spends the most money, but who can say which side catches the most bream?

The Big Four of Bream

Four species get nearly all the attention from Florida’s bream fishermen. They are the bluegill, shellcracker, redbreast and stumpknocker. Although freshwater veterans can usually distinguish them at a glance, less experienced anglers may get confused and need identifying features to look for. That’s because color is not always a reliable indicator. If every specimen wore the look of an adult spawning male, there would be few problems but, unfortunately, hue and pattern often change with size, season and environment.

BLUEGILL: Found in nearly all our fresh waters, bluegill are more saucer-shaped than the other three. The color is usually dark blue or navy, sometimes with pale vertical stripes. Adults often have orange or red breasts, and coppery patches on the head. The extension or "flap" of the gill cover is solid black. Adult bluegills average around 8 ounces and frequently exceed 12 ounces, but a one-pounder is bragging material. The "hand painted bream" of the Apalachicola River drainage in the Panhandle is a genetic variation of the bluegill.

SHELLCRACKER: Since you aren’t often able to witness this fish cracking shells, look for the feature that provides another of its common names, "redear." The gill flap is outlined in red. Size is often a giveaway, for this is our largest bream in terms of both average and maximum size, often exceeding a pound and not awfully rare at two pounds. Color is usually greenish or bluish on the sides, with a vivid yellow belly in adults. Although more plentiful in lakes, shellcrackers can also be found in most of Florida’s rivers.

REDBREAST: This is the most colorful of bream, and also the most elongated in outline. Yes, the belly is usually bright red in large specimens and still colorful in smaller fish, ranging from brick to yellow. The gill flap is black like the bluegill’s but proportionately much longer. Wavy blue lines on the gill cover provide a sure ID. Redbreast are rarely seen in lakes, except those that are part of river systems. They prefer briskly running water. A half-pound redbreast is a biggie, and you might fish for years without seeing a one-pounder.

STUMPKNOCKER: The Florida record stumpknocker barely topped three-quarters of a pound. Although the smallest of the "Big Four," this is perhaps the most aggressive, which is saying a lot, since all the species are rugged far beyond their size. The color is dark olive or brown, with tiny black dots sprinkled liberally over the sides. The belly ranges from light yellow to dark red. Stumpknockers can be found in backwater areas of lakes, but are more at home in streams, where they usually stand guard around shoreline roots, leaving the more exposed central areas to the redbreast bream.