Thread: tips for redear?

I think they're better fighters than bluegill -- awesome fish!

I catch all mine while fishing for gills. I generally use maggots, but worms are supposed to be great bait, too. They are more bottom-oriented than bluegills, so you might want to keep your bait at or near the bottom.

Jim Hatch over at FAOL (www.flyanglersonline.com) fly fishes very successfully for them with small scud patterns.

Red worms on the bottom, look for hard bottom sand or gravel , they just seem to ease off with the bait rather than slam it, like a bluegill. Eddie

Originally Posted by papa

Red worms on the bottom, look for hard bottom sand or gravel , they just seem to ease off with the bait rather than slam it, like a bluegill. Eddie

Ditto!! What little I know about them.

look for sandy areas or better yet mussle beds at creek entrances (upstream end of lake if it has a dam). Fish a red wiggler on the bottom or just off the bottom. The red ear (shellcracker) in my local lake slam the bait when they are on. They a very hard fighters and can get much bigger than bluegill or redbeast.

I know they catch them in Lake Conway near Little Rock. Do they inhabit oxbow lakes with mostly mud bottom?

I live close to Ky Lake and here we do a lot of bowfishing for rough fish. One night while we were shooting fish I happen to notice back in the very back of the bays where the grass mat and algae was ,everywhere there was a little pocket ,there was a redear. It was in 1-2' of water and they were everywhere.So, the next night I went back with a 10' flyrod and worms and wore them outtttt.The light we use is a q-beam and it didn't bother them a bit. I caught my 20 and the biggest was 12.5". If your lake has grass or algae growth in the very back of coves or bays ease back in there with a light one night, you might be surprised. This was in September.

When I fish the redworms, I fish with a cigar float with a heavy split shot that keeps the cork low in the water. This helps me see the action of the cork better as sometimes the shellcracker won't hardly move the cork when hitting it. If you let them mess around with it too much, they will swallow the hook.

Also, get them up out of the water as quick as possible to keep them from messing up the bed area.

Caught 48 nice ones Monday and another 48 on Tuesday. All nice big ones around 3/4 pound.

Going after some 1-2 pounders Saturday.

We've found that shellcrackers really go after dark purple colored baits. Try threading a purple and chartreuse (Charlie Brewer) slider grub on a long shank bream hook. Add a cricket and hold on. The first few you catch will tear the chartreuse tail off the grub but no need to change it cause it's the purple color that attracts them. :D

Dan