Thread: Greatest bluegill rig ever

I will put my "maggots fished under a waggler" up against it any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

Originally Posted by slimecoat

This is copy of a saltwater rig used to catch trout on the flats in Florida. I use the smallest unweighted styrofoam popping cork I can find and some 30lb test leader to make the rigs main line. The hook line is 10lb test. I think the secret is that the rig makes three different sounds in rapid succession. When you work the rod tip, the rig makes a pop, a thunk and a high frequency tick. After all that racket every eye down there is looking up and then here come a chunk of nightcrawler free falling on a small gold hook. It has been deadly for me. Try it sometime, it’s fun to fish.

This looks like a good presentation, I will have to give it a try
Thanks for sharing.

I will put my cricket weighted with 1 split shot under a porcupine quill up against both of your rigs any day of the week and THREE TIMES on Sunday.....................afterwards we will go fillet all of our gills, give them a grease bath, throw in a couple of ice cold adult beverages and ,frankly, dont give a flip who outfished who. We had a good time, good fellowship and good eats. That's my story and I'm stickin to it

We have been using a balanced bobber system for the past ten years. The system works well with small jigs and lures . This type of presentation allows for up bite and lite bite detection. A bobber attached in this manor will not cut lite line and allows the lure to drop in a more natural way. Because of the natural lure drop live bait is not use, but a small piece of tempered power bait is use as scent. The bobber is balanced for the size of lure used.
The sleeves are attached to the line first, the bobber is inserted into the sleeves and adjusted for desired lure dept.
System components; A ten foot spinning rod,4 to 6 LB test line, Spring bobber( discard the spring) Silicon tubing,Solder or lead wire.

I recently read an article on Click Clack Rigs. The Clicking sound sets off a feeding instinct. This method works well in clear water for Upstate New York Small Mouth. They hit like a Train Wreck. Fish On! Why not try it for bluegills and crappie?

I agree with the waggler and quill posts - those are the two most sensitive floats that have been mentioned. I use the panfish float from Gapen, which is far more sensitive than any other float presently available in this country that I've found, with no weight and a red wriggler hooked only once through the nose on an aberdeen #6 (#8 or #10 is better if the bluegill average less than 8"). The Gapen float attaches by way of a sleeve so it doesn't weaken the line - really a fabulous float.

The two biggest problems I see with the rig suggested by the original poster is the line size - ten-pound-test will get you skunked many, many days if you're fishing for big bluegill, while a fisherman right next to you with six-pound wears them out - and the size of the float. Unless there's a popping cork far smaller than any I've seen, that's way too big for bluegill fishing, if you want to catch the big ones at least.

Speaking of popping corks, we catch shellcrackers (redear) all the time on popping corks with live shrimp. That's what I love about living on the coast. Especially this time of year. We catch specs, reds, flounder, bass, shellcracker, sheepheads, and all kinds of stuff in the river.