deep bluff gills

Any one fish those deep drop offs by bluffs?there are some nice gills down there.My favorite rig for them is easy to use and quite efdfective and fairly snag proof.Since i'm fishing water as deep as 25 ft, with rubble on the bottom, I need to keep my bait deep, but off bottom.I use a 7 ft light casting rod,20lb spider wire, and a bottom bouncer rig, the kind with the long wire at the end of it.I tie the bouncer to the main line, and then use a dropper knot about 3 ft from the bouncer, put on a small swivel, and about a 3 ft snelled no4 hook, and the bait of your choice.I use my trolling motor to keep near the drop off, and just keep on moving till i find a good concentration of fish, and work the area a little bit and move looking for anotherspot and keep going back till i have fished enough, or the water skiers start driving you into the walls, usually in the summer months its the later that occurs, dont be surprised if you hang something other than gills, if you have some crawlers, there may be some old marble eyed fish down there.

I have been wanting to try the bluffs on Wilson lake but havn't had time yet. I might be able to make a night trip soon. How deep should I start trying for gills with a surface temp of around 88?

Thanks, Ed

This brings up the old thermocline thing, many deep lakes have this feature, how do you find it?I dont know. But watching my locator i see a lot of activity at certain levels, this is either the thermo or fish, watching this depth, i go to the bluffs and start fishing at or near the depth of the activity, but i try to keep contact with the bottom, but, not staying right on it.The bluffs i like to fish are near the creek channels or main river channels.A lot of this will change with a great pull at the dam for electic generation.I know one spot that I want to try, that is far off shore, and the deep drop is on a large flat, but at this time of year, the personal watercraft makes it almost impossible to fish, and keep your sanity

we've caught a lot of 9" gills and a couple 10" redears on botom bouncers and crawlers fishin for walleye....never caught any this big fishin my flyrod here????

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Originally Posted by kygorski

Any one fish those deep drop offs by bluffs?there are some nice gills down there..

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on a lake here in Central Ky ... Herrington Lake. Some cliff/bluff walls have 40 to 120ft of water. We used to put a cricket on, with a #4 split shot about 12-14" up the line from the hook. We cast parallel to the cliff, and away from the cliff about 15-20ft. The small gills seem to like the safety of the cliff, itself, with all the hidey holes and crevices. The submerged ledges of these cliff walls, are usually claimed by Bass or Catfish. But, the larger gills seemed to stay out away from the cliffs ... and IF you could get your cricket down to 15-20ft, before a little guy caught it, then you could usually depend on getting a nice one. We just cast the cricket as far as we could, and engaged the reel, then allowed the bait to swing/fall back under the boat. This allowed us to let the cricket swing thru the depth range, where the gills were. A "nip nip" meant that a dink had caught up with the falling cricket :o and you probably didn't have a cricket, any longer :rolleyes: ... but, a strong downward pull or sideways run would usually mean a good one had sucked it in, and was heading away from the pack. ;) Dropping the cricket straight down, even to the correct depth (where the gill pack was suspended), didn't seem to work as well as the swinging/falling method ... when we tried it (tightline), we found that the larger gills would bite the cricket similar to the way the dinks did ... nipping at it, and tearing off the legs & head, until the cricket came apart. Seems the larger ones wanted the "offering" to be moving/falling, in a more natural (?) way.
When the gills spawn at Herrington ... a wax worm on a black "pop-eye" jig, under a small float, cast right against the cliff walls, is one way to get into some good action. Of course, Channel Cats are a byproduct of this type of fishing, too ;) Seems they spawn in the cracks & crevices of these same rock cliffs !! And, around the same times, occasionally. And, it wouldn't surprise me, if both the gills & cats fed on the spawn of the other ! ............ luck2ya ... cp :cool:

CP,

I fished liked that for gills many times at Herrington. Your post brings back very fond memories.

One thing that I failed to mention, is line twist on the snells. Even with a swivel, if you are using redworms or meal worms, you will have thew snell tangle with the main line, to help with this I started using 15 pound flouro leaders to tie my snells, this line is stiffer than mono, and will stand out from the main line. Going to further work on this next time I try the deep deep water. The split shot and bait works well, but the dinks can drive you crazy rebaiting , so I opt to get deep quick, and go for the hungry bigger ones.