I've never seen them not bite crickets, but if I went artificial I'd stay with a beetle spin, grub, or hair jig tipped with a crappie nibble. Stay small 1/32 or even 1/64 oz. lure!
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I like to use waxworms or butter worms fished under a slip bobber. Big bluegill love butter worms, they can't help themselves.![]()
Wishing you Blue Skies and Tight Lines
I've never seen them not bite crickets, but if I went artificial I'd stay with a beetle spin, grub, or hair jig tipped with a crappie nibble. Stay small 1/32 or even 1/64 oz. lure!
...also, my father in law used to do really well with meal worms![]()
The best bait I have ever found for gills was called English Maggots at the marina at Lake Fork where I bought them. They were just regular maggots that had been kept in a dye solution to make them red, blue and green.
Gills could not resist them and you would catch two-three gills on each one before you had to re-bait. We used to fill a large ice chest using this bait every time we went to Lake Fork. Our elderly neighbor loved them and would ask us to bring back a chest full every time she saw us taking the boat out.
I now use pieces of uncooked hot dogs since I no longer trailer my boat since I am elderly myself now. So I don't go to Lake Fork any more and the local marina has never heard of English Maggots. (nor much of anything else other than night crawlers and minnows. )
The action is not as fast with pieces of hot dogs as it were with the English Maggots, as hot dogs don't have the wiggle that attracted the gills.But it is still fast enough to provide the action when the crappies are not cooperating.
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I'm gonna have to try shrimp pieces!
1/64 oz hair jigs under a bobber have been working for us lately.
HAVE A CRAPPIE DAY