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I know this may be a dumb question..but...How do you go about locating bluegill beds? Where are the prime locations of a lake (resavoir) where they like to bed? I went out looking for beds Saturday, but the lake was stained and there was only about a two ft visability, so I would basically just go to likely spots and make blind casts and hope to stumble across some bedding gills. Any advice would be much appreciated.
If the bed has active spawning going on you can smell them. They like to bed on red sandy bottoms, they also like gravel.....so if you know of any of these places go try there. If the water is not stained you can stand up in the boat and ease around the shoreline and spot them.
Do you believe you can hear redear??? When they are sucking on tupelo tree they make a poping sound .. This is really true. I no longer fish for them as my two hearing aid don't help???
Bluegill will bed in a bunch of different places, in the lakes I fish, a flat, or a small shallow pocket, or shallow point are some of the best places to look. You should be able to spot them next to the bank or close to shallow cover with a good pair of polarized glasses. Beds are usually not that deep, unless your talking about redears, they will spawn deeper, were talking about visible beds. Some believe gills will bed in 10' or so, but those are a little harder to find. You may see 5 beds or you may see 100, just depends. Spotting them is farily simple, if you know where to look. As mentioned before, you can smell them when on the spawning beds. Good luck!
really? what do they smell like?Quote:
Originally Posted by Locator79
I smelled up a bunch of bedding Bluegill, one time .... and the smell was just like a "fishy smell", not the "dead fish' stinky smell but more of a smell like when you pass by a bucket of fresh caught fish or a stringer full of fish that someone's holding. I was going down a bank, wind blowing towards me .... once the smell went away, I turned back around & started fishing. Sure enough, there they were ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by jonnythefisherman1
I've also heard people say that it smells alot like ripe watermelon :eek: :p
I've also heard people say they look for lots of tiny bubbles coming to the surface in an area ... supposedly bubbles are released from the bottom, when the Blugill are making the nest depression.
... cp :cool:
Quote:
Originally Posted by jonnythefisherman1
FISH:)
See, I was thinking more like DINNER:DQuote:
Originally Posted by Buckeyemusky
use the SI if they're out in deeper water to track them down:D:D:D
Thats an awsome picture, but not being a user of electronics could you describe a bit of what I am looking at some of the technical info such as depth, temp, etc. ThanksQuote:
Originally Posted by DonDon
Yeah...same here,:confused: help us interpret that to what you are seeing. Nice pic.Quote:
Originally Posted by slabsrus
I see it....all the round depressions showing on the bottom ....look on the left side of the pic. Thats bream beds.
Looks like a gold ball. that's the beds. IF the bream are bedding, their easy to find on a smaller lake. Like others have said, SMELL them out. Once you smell them go upwind and you'll find them. I think it smells like a musty honeysuckle though. Give me a big ole bream bed and my flyrod and I'm in heaven
In deeper water you can look for bubbles coming up...used to find em on Toledo bend like that...you see a bunch of bubbles coming up & chances are the chinquapins are bedding there.
Wow, learn something new everyday :) I've never paid much attention to the smell omitted from the area of bedded bluegills, but primarily relied on the 'visual' instead. Very easy to see the beds as the area is resembles the surface of a large golf ball :p (i.e. dimples).
In regards to deeper water, I've usually catch them trolling (before I decided to use a fishfinder).
I'll try the 'scented' technique the next time I'm on the water. Heck, might as well look for the bubbles as well .. :p *laughing* .. which reminds me of the time I was fishing and noticed some bubbles in the water behind the boat. I leaned over and nearly fell out at what I'd seen ... a big *&$^# turtle!!! Scared the living crap outta me.. LMAO
As always, thanks for the added tips :)
Vern
Thanks for the advice guys. I saw a few beds the last time I went out but no bubbles on the surface and no scent. Tried fishing them with some crickets but didn't have any luck. They must have not been bedding. I guess you just have to catch them at the right time. From now on, no scent, no bubbles, means no gills on the bed, at least until I find out otherwise..lol
the old timers look for bubbles and call it foaming , you can tell the difference in fish bubbles and just air pockets .Quote:
Originally Posted by crappiepappy
How it smells will depend on the lake. THink about it, they're roiling the bottom up when they fan, that's what you smell. Gotta remember the 'foaming', I've found that around here the larger gills are generally the deeper bedding gills.
[QUOTE=INGrandad;1199743]How it smells will depend on the lake. THink about it, they're roiling the bottom up when they fan, that's what you smell. Gotta remember the 'foaming', I've found that around here the larger gills are generally the deeper bedding gills.[/QUOTE just smell your finger,after you caught a few:cool:.
They like to bed over a over hanging branch sometime's, they suck stump's and iffrn the bottom aint red sand the water should be of a difernt color soft residue. Bubble's i find are in shallower water as the lake i fish now is mostly shallow.
And oppen water bed's that are harder to find i would immagine will be the deepest? And in differn color screen's on side iammaging as said the color you are using will appear the same shade, bronze a more bronzer color golf ball(Iffen a fsh is on the bed,on sideimmaging to me it looks like a golf ball.) the lighter the lighter the redder the redder as the shade's tend to favor! Just my oppoin? Happy fourth feller's!!
PS i still think if there is one there and you have a crickett kicken they will have to have it?