What are your favorite Bluegill and Shellcracker flies and lures?

Hi Folks,

I know everybody has their favorites. I like to use foam pushers (Dremel bugs) and spongy spiders mostly for my surface Bluegill flies. I use my Dixie Bug, Gill Getters, Jitterbees, Damselfly and Dragonfly nymphs, wet flies, among others for my subsurface Bluegill flies. I like to use scuds mostly for Shellcrackers (Redear Sunfish).

I have caught some pretty big Bluegill (2.25 and 2.75 lb.) on live worms and crickets one or two inches below one or two split shots on the bottom by watching any slight movement in the rod tip from the bank. But on a boat I can't watch rod tip movement so I find floats or slip floats can do the job. For lures, small beetlespins have always been my favorites.

What works for you?

Accardo & Pecks Bream Killer for topwater. I remove the rear hook from a Rebel Crickhopper popper, tie on a 2 ft leader, and tie on that fly. The Crickhopper catches bass and some of the larger bluegill.

Charlie Brewer Charlie Bee spinners work good as a subsurface lure. I've also caught em on 1/16th oz Road Runner jug heads w/ crappie thunder bodies. Wax worms and crickets have accounted for my biggest catches.

We use many methods to fish for bluegill and green sunfish (with the odd pumpkinseed or longear thrown in)..
If we're fishing the dam, we'll usually stick a waxworm or two on a small hook under a bobber. If we're fishing weeds, we'll usully put a tiny midge fly tipped with
something under a bobber and just flip it out a few feet.
Our favorite is to tie up to flooded timber in about fifteen feet of water and slowly let out line with either a weighted fly or a waxie on a hook. We never take a finger off the line and we let it go as deep as it will drop, then slowly reel and yo-yo the line back up. As soon as you find the zone, you'll know it with your finger on the line. We lose a few that wrap around the tree limbs deep, but still boat plenty.
If we're doing cast and retrieve, I like a micro craw or frog, but the biggest gill I've causght was on a firetiger Worden's Roostertail. - Roberta

We fish for bluegill with redworms, wax worms and meal worms under a slipbobber. After the spawn we locate them in about 20' of water about 10' deep. This is a great idea for the forum.

I use a 1/32 beetlespin in catabla (dark green body/yellow stripes) on a ultralight rod with 4# line. Small rooster tails in yellow, green or orange work well for me.

As far as live bait I use crickets, hard to beat a cricket for bream. I use pinks for shellcracker.

I love to bream fish, almost as much as I love to fish for crappie.

A 4 inch black power worm is killer on big shellcrackers when bedding.
I use wax worms in early spring and once the flies hatch, I move to crickets and use them until water drops below 70 again in the fall

I like to use a red wiggler on a drop shot rig. Caught a lot of big ones like this.

At Tunica we put a cricket on a crappie jig in April and May and catch as many crappie as we did without the cricket but you can also bet on a few bream. It is a big help on days where the crappie might aren't right on the brush, cuz the bream usually are.

I find when bream are bedding that a pinch of a nightcrawler on a hook with a split shot right on the bottom is unbeatable.

The biggest bream I ever caught was on a copper colored micro rattle trap.

Topwater poppers and flies are fun, but maggots are my top live bait. They work on crappie, catfish and trout, too!

marathon popper, chenile spider, bead head nymphs...crickets, crawlers, maggots for live bait..caught my biggest, 2lb even, on 2 lb test and 1/64 oz marabou jig.(shellcracker).