I love setting the hook on a 9"+ bluegill, the kind where you grunt just after you set the hook and it feels like a stump. And then that bulldogging circling fight with the rod doubled over and the 6x stretched like piano wire.
Got one lake around here, and I've known for a long time there's huge gills, up to 11" in it, and plenty of them, but they're tough to find, they bed in 8' of water, and tough to entice when you do find them.
I was out last evening and spent two hours finding them. I knew there was a spawn on, I'd caught too many 6-8" fish shallow that were full of eggs for there not be. So I was dinkin' along the shore, had a 14 Adams on, I'd cast out away from shore, and then work my casts progressively closer toward shore. I'd screwed up a cast and was stripping the fly back to the boat and hooked a fish I mistook for a bass, I could feel the head shake, and it went deep and slugged it out for a bit before starting that familiar circling. A huge bluegill.
So I spent a good half hour giving them the traditional presentation that's worked in the past; lay it down gently, let it lay, small twitch, let it lay.... They weren't having it. So I figured since I'd caught that one while stripping, I'd try a soft hackle. Nothing. A bitch creek...nothing. A sparrow... nothing.
Put the Adams back on and scratched my head. Greased it up good and laid it out about 20' from shore. Stripped it back in about 4-6" pulls, just enough to keep it on top. I killed them. Big old cautious bluegills wanted it moving, and they wanted it moving on top. If you stopped, nothing. If it went under, nothing. As long as the fly was on top or at least bulging the film, it was guaranteed you'd have a hit or two. Some casts you'd see that wake coming from a long ways and get repeated hits until they were hook. It was great.
Bluegill are under-rated. Fight like crazy, get to respectable sizes, will take a multitude of offerings, but the bigger they get the more cautious they get. And once in a while they throw ya for a complete loop. Nice being taken to school last evening.
