squeakers at park

[robbor]

I went to our local park lake here in the city, lots of TINY gills. I dug out some tiny fly hooks and went back. Im using size a 24 hook and still missing a ton of fish:D. Lots of fun and lots of fish launching.

[deathb4disco]

I have caught bluegills from 1" up to 11" on a #16. What size gill can't take a #24?

Are you using flies or bait?

[robbor]

gills dont always inhale a bait often they peck and tear the bait off the hook. The smaller ones that i caught were about 2" and the larger ones are about 3.5". I was using anywhere from 1/4 to 1/3 of a redworm. I was missing 95% of the nibbles with a whole worm. I didnt see anyone else catch a single fish both days. heres a 2". The bass was not caught.

[deathb4disco]

I didnt see anyone else catch a single fish both days.

With maggots and a #16 or #18 hook, you could EMPTY the place.

See here:

More Bluegills

[Baxter1]

Good article ,thanks.

[robbor]

Ive been useing thill mini stealth and match floats for 10 years, they are worth their weight in gold. I used a MS-2 on the gills only because i was to lazy to replace it with a MS-0. Red/white bobbers suck! Maggots are tough to find and $$$ here. I am never without a few ms-2 floats.

[deathb4disco]

Ive been useing thill mini stealth and match floats for 10 years, they are worth their weight in gold. I used a MS-2 on the gills only because i was to lazy to replace it with a MS-0. Red/white bobbers suck! Maggots are tough to find and $$$ here. I am never without a few ms-2 floats.

Yeah, most bobbers sold in the US are pretty bad. I started fooling around with the Thill floats back in the early '90's. I went to a Mick Thill seminar in 1997 and have never looked back -- been using nothing but European-style floats since then. I rarely use the Thill floats anymore, though. The European versions are better, and they're more available now.

Nobody carries maggots locally, so I order all mine. Vados and Grubco sell them. I can usually get them for $8-$9 per thousand, including shipping. They are beyond deadly for bluegill and trout.

[robbor]

For my style of fishing i prefer the mini stealth as i am constantly moving and shaking the bait. I also normally dont use split shot instead i use ice jigs, it makes the float react more, i can see bites on the fall, as well as normal & lift bites. I do have about a dozen european floats but seldom get used. I used to check mick thills web site and he would announce new products and then never would have them for sell, he always said they would be avail NEXT season. When I went to the park the last time there was a little kid following me who had been there fishing for about 2 hours and had caught nothing(10-12# test,red/white bobber, #12 hook). I was catching about 2-3 fish a minute at the time so i had him catch a few then set him up. The floats are pretty expensive now though. I bought mine direct from lindy way back as a bulk refill pack of 50 for a counter display and i want to say they were less than .50 each in bulk with no retail lic.

[deathb4disco]

I used to check mick thills web site and he would announce new products and then never would have them for sell, he always said they would be avail NEXT season.

Mick's mother and sister both have serious health issues. He spends a good amount of time in England taking care of them. In addition, he had a cancer scare a couple of years ago himself. Taken together, these things have really hurt his business.

a little kid ... had been there fishing for about 2 hours and had caught nothing(10-12# test,red/white bobber, #12 hook).

Yeah, that's very typical and very sad. I hate to see kids not catching fish, and tackle like that pretty much guarantees a lack of success. Kudos for helping him out.

[Fatman]

Try some really light Betts bobbers slip or fixed. They have a sweet teardrop style one with or without weight that works good. Sounds like that fishing hole needs to get fished out or netted out or something put in to eat some of them up. Sounds like stunted fish.

Fatman