My father passed away six years ago, but in 2002 I went back to Talquin one summer afternoon, launching from our familiar old boat landing. Lake Talquin has grass shrimp in it, and I caught enough to last for two days of fishing. I had not fished long before a thunderstorm hit, driving me back to my truck. After the storm passed and the lake settled down, I motored up to the familiar cove we fished years earlier and resumed my fishing.

With my trolling motor set on slow speed, I eased along in water 6 to 8 feet deep, pitching two small grass shrimp on a No. 8 hook. Maybe it was the rain shower cooling things off, or the fact that I had grass shrimp and everything in fresh water loves to eat them . . . or maybe it was just God smiling on a fisherman revisiting his youth. I caught a couple of dozen bluegills and a handful of shellcrackers that afternoon before the sun touched the tops of the trees. The only thing that would have made the trip better is if my father had been with me.

One of the best bream fishermen I know and who also fishes Talquin is John Shouppe of Cottondale. The energetic 72-year-old still drives a white Toyota truck he purchased in 1988 and points with pride to the fact that it has 388,000 miles on it. Many of those miles were undoubtedly logged while driving to Talquin to chase panfish.

When you go fishing with John, you quickly realize you're going to learn something about sport, whether you go after bream or other species.

While John has caught his share of bream on crickets and worms, several years ago he began to experiment with small spinnerbaits for panfishing. He tried an assortment of small spinners and flies before deciding on a combination that's deadly on bluegills, shellcrackers and an occasional largemouth bass. He uses a tiny Hilderbrant No. 0 size spinner and a light brown Rainbow fly. The fly has a No. 8 hook. Even though his spinner-fly combination is light, he casts it on a 6-foot medium-action rod and light spinning reel. He uses 4-pound line and can cast the tiny bait a considerable distance.

"If I can, I always try to throw with the wind," Shouppe said. "Sometimes I can throw it 80 to 90 feet. If bream are real spooky, or the water is clear, you've got to be able to throw it or they'll see you and run."

While some fishermen like to sit in one place, anchor and fish, Shouppe believes in moving until he finds fish. Two years ago, he and a friend made an April trip to Talquin and fished from early morning until noon without any luck. In fact, Shouppe said he was just about ready to go home when they began picking up a fish or two. When their luck changed, it really changed, and from a little after noon until 3 p.m. they caught 90 bluegills. Although he's had plenty of good and bad fishing days, he said that three-hour period is one of the best he's ever experienced.

According to Shouppe, there are two things he does to improve his chances of catching fish. One of them is putting on one or more small split-shot weights on his line to get the bait down. In addition, he said he's always on the move looking for fish.