Quote Originally Posted by NIMROD View Post
Bluegills spawn every full moon in warm months
Not around here. I'm sorry but they just don't. I've been fishing bluegills for almost 30 years and never seen "ready" eggs past early June until now. They start building eggs for next year pretty quickly, but that is not what I am talking about. Totally different than you guys down south. We have a short growing season and very short spawn seasons for all species, which is why our fish are slow growing and smaller. A 10" crappie up here is 6-7 years old, a 14" can be 12-15 years old.

Where I also fish in Minnesota, they have adapted a 10 bluegill limit as they are trying to get more 9-10" fish in the lakes. In their studies they found 15+ year old bluegills that were 9" long, and it is not from over populating.. its because of the short growing season when 5 months of the year the lakes have ice on them. I witnessed the shortest bluegill spawn I've ever seen up there this spring, I watched males build beds on monday, spawn on tuesday and weds, and the females be post spawn and off the beds on thurs. Thurs/fri we caught spawned out female bluegills all day long and never saw one with eggs. These beds were 100-150 bed patches, unlike anything I have ever seen in my life. Hundreds and hundreds of females staged just off them, spawned at once and done two days later. I have also never caught a female bluegill with eggs there in july in 26 years of fishing it.