Hard to beat bobber and worms for numbers, but I’m new to catching big bluegill. Any tips on how to locate the big ones?
Hard to beat bobber and worms for numbers, but I’m new to catching big bluegill. Any tips on how to locate the big ones?
First step is to find a place that produces big bluegill consistently.
I know you said big bluegill but the float n fly has been really producing for me!
I use the Trout Magnet with great results for all size bluegill. As Disco said you have to find them first. In TN big bluegill are much harder to find than years back. You have to fish the right body of water. The lake I fish most of the time is not known for producing big bluegill....shellcracker and redbreast sunfish yes. If I want big bluegill I have to drive to Dale Hollow.....9-10 inch fish are common there.
Regards
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I go with redworms and bobber
Ken
hard to beat a worm on a number 8 hook jig about 1/32 or 1/64 fished deep .
but as stated you have to put it where there are big bluegill .
Eagle mountain lake has pretty nice size bluegill in it
Grapevine lake does as well
further south Whitney has some big gills .
Joe Poole sometimes
Lake Arlington as well ...
Purtis creek used to be pretty good . ......
lake Athens had big gills too ....but for sure ...
Fairfield is the monster bluegill lake if you dont mind the drive south a bit .
pm me and i will tell you where my favorite lake is down your way for big bluegill .
its a small lake and i dont want to blow it up on the internet .
KABOOM is the word
bouncing a 1/64oz jig across the bottom does it for me. I use Slab Sauce and Nibbles for added attraction. Most any black tail will work. TM in black and gold is a favorite. Most really big gills will be deeper than the small to medium ones. My 2cts.
P.S- as stated above, the pond or lake must have big gills before you can catch them, Good Luck.
3 pound crickets
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8-10ft gravelly bottom that slopes into weeds on the bank. With wood laying around. I start 2ft under a cork with a 1/32 oz jig head. Aiming to keep bait just off or on the bottom. Changing depth till I find them. Bait of choice is a 1/3 of a nightcrawler just tipped on the hook and not threaded on the hook. When you find fish keep looking close for bigger ones. I've caught some of the better gills crappie fishing this year.
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Medium weight Speedstick with a thill bobber, split shot, number six hook, and a night crawler from the gas station. Doesn’t get much more basic than that, but I get about 30 dinks for every “large” BG.
That’s a real nice ‘Gill there, GLR.
Bob
Drifting nightcrawlers.
By the looks of your photo Slab, it already looks like you know how to catch crappie. It's NO different for bluegills, perch or sunfish. Of course #1 is to know the water you're fishing - depth, weeds, bottom types (hard/ soft), points, steep drops, docks, season, weather changes, etc. Areas change by the season and may differ year to year. Everything mentioned make for patterns that may be depended on. The larger the water, the more time needed to find fish.
All of the above mentioned lures are good ones but as for myself, I will always depend on light, unpainted ball head jigs and soft plastics - of which there are a million designs. Shape, action, size and color are always important but many combinations of them make it easy to not get locked in to any one or a few.
Big fish of any species will bite small lures as do small fish. The float & live bait is the slowest way to catch fish though productive at times and not large fish necessarily.
When it comes to rod & reel, light action spinning rods with smaller spincast or spinning reels do very well detecting strikes at long distances and setting the hook. My line preference is 6 or 8# test braid for casting long distance and better hooksets. This year I've probably counted (per a counter and photo log) over 700 fish and all because of the tackle used, subtle presentations (speed and type of retrieve) and tried & true lures.
A float with small soft plastic attached to a 1/32 or 1/24 oz jig is great when there is a slight chop on the water.
I wait until the float disappears while I'm fishing with another lure and then set the hook. Easy peasy. But jigs should be worked slowly all around the boat to find fish - especially groups of fish in an area.
I've shown hundreds of examples of fish and the lures that caught them on this site but here a few more:
https://i.imgur.com/SM5bOrV.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/4HbMiad.jpghttps://i.imgur.com/W03rCXs.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/yKS86QH.jpghttps://i.imgur.com/AIMrXrD.jpg
As you can see, bright unnatural colors do the trick in off color water.
Straight tail lures are my most used tail designs:
https://i.imgur.com/JeJvBhv.jpg?1
...as well as no tail:
https://i.imgur.com/SdW8103.jpghttps://i.imgur.com/g7Bfvo6.jpg
Curl tails do well in the murky color water shown as well as darker colors:
https://i.imgur.com/g8erebl.jpg
...not to mention the overhead spinner:
https://i.imgur.com/e07ZYf0.jpg
Ideas to try that I've caught many fish and fish species over the years.
With the Z-man TRD on a Nedhead.
Attachment 388625
Nah, not really. This guy thumped this bass rig yesterday. My fav is earth worms or 1" Gulp minnows on a drop-shot or on a bobber.
I fish on the bottom with split shot and #6-8 hook. Attachment 388626
Attachment 388627
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Wow! Thanks for the responses everyone! I appreciate your time.
This forum rocks!!
I guess I need to try one of those magnets because I have never caught a big bluegill---yet.
I rarely use Crappie or Trout Magnets right from the package but attach the tails to different bodies such as this Trout Magnet tail added to a larger body:
https://i.imgur.com/gqADyxa.jpghttps://i.imgur.com/9qVnD79.jpg?1https://i.imgur.com/ojem9Qg.jpg?2
...and this Crappie Magnet tail added to the flat body of a segment cut from a French Fry stick:
https://i.imgur.com/YU5CcQ8.jpg?1
...or other grub body with the curl tail cut off :
https://i.imgur.com/HbxD88N.jpghttps://i.imgur.com/zkUk7NZ.jpg
Sometimes fish in general attack larger bodies more often - larger meaning thicker and a bit longer.
Who says you can't catch larger fish with small lures!:
https://i.imgur.com/naTv4dL.jpg
As stated by others above, you need to fish a lake that actually produces big bluegill. A lot of them don't for some reason. Generally what I've found is there isn't any sure fire way to catch the larger fish without also catching the smaller ones. Even large bluegill have small mouths and so using a larger bait doesn't make as big of a difference as it does with fish like bass and crappie.
The average size seems to run a bit larger when I fish jigs vs. live bait and I think that is because the fish need to get the jig hook in their mouth on the initial strike and the larger ones are able to do that a little bit easier. You can also fish very small crank baits and those will usually only catch the larger fish, but generally not a lot of them. I've actually caught a few large bluegill while fishing small minnows for crappie, but it has been a rare enough event that I don't think I'd count on it producing any real numbers of bluegill. Generally, if I know the lake has large gills I keep moving until I find bigger fish as they often seem to group in sizes. The bigger ones do often hang out in deeper water than smaller fish too. If I'm catching 6" gills in 3 feet of water, sometimes I'll find 8 - 9 inch fish by fishing near the same area, but where the water deepens to 6 - 8 feet. Eight to nine inch bluegill are very common in many lakes around here, 10 inch and larger are present, but quite rare.
My best two baits ? Meal worms on a 1/32 jig head fished on bottom Carolina rigged Attachment 388747 and a 1/32 Road runner with a go go minnow(white )or a Attachment 388748 Southern pro double trouble curly tail .
The lures shown are pretty large for 5" and larger bluegills have pretty large mouths in comparison to lure body size. As long as #6 jig head hooks are used, fish will attack and get hooked on moderately sized soft plastics such as:Quote:
Even large bluegill have small mouths and so using a larger bait doesn't make as big of a difference as it does with fish like bass and crappie.
https://i.imgur.com/eOtrSzb.jpg?1https://i.imgur.com/JTnxAOv.jpg?1https://i.imgur.com/azMZxUk.jpg?1https://i.imgur.com/dyWjUO1.jpghttps://i.imgur.com/WfbolMC.jpg?1https://i.imgur.com/XTmvCf1.jpghttps://i.imgur.com/hH6Sy2A.jpghttps://i.imgur.com/SjzNVtz.jpg
These gills on the small size aren't exceptions to the rule, they are the rule.
...a few more:
https://i.imgur.com/CEcTfOi.jpghttps://i.imgur.com/gZjzHe6.jpg?1https://i.imgur.com/CIWH6AK.jpg?1https://i.imgur.com/PR3AVTs.jpghttps://i.imgur.com/8y4zySK.jpg?1https://i.imgur.com/KoFu2ZN.jpghttps://i.imgur.com/Mi6f1CK.jpg
(note: hooks are reattached from the outside for photo only and record keeping photo log.)
Don't get me wrong, fish don't attack necessarily because they are hungry or want a big, fat quick & easy meal. Aggression is aggression no matter the reason and overthinking motive is labeling at most to justify most explanations why fish attack. I stick simply to lure design and presentation which includes the maximum size lure gills attack of any particular design.
I don't disagree with this approach. Just my experience tells me if I'm fishing 1/16th oz jigs with 2 inch long or longer bodies I'm not likely to catch more than a handful of bluegill. If I were fishing for a lake record and didn't care about catching enough for a couple of family meals I would indeed focus only on larger baits. Same if I went fishing a lot more often than I do. But my fishing time is limited and if I'm bluegill fishing I'm usually trying to catch enough for my family of 4 to get a few meals from. At least on the waters around here in north MS, I'm not likely to make a catch of 10 or more 8" fish on jigs longer than 1.5 inches or so.Quote:
Originally Posted by Spoonminnow
Attachment 388749Attachment 388750
All lures shown average 1.5 - 2.5" and few gills are over 5 1/2", some 6". In spring in NY I caught over 2 doz. sunfish on different outings along with other species on the same lures. Amazing the fight of a 6" sunfish !!
In the spring I like to fish the edge of the weed beds in 3' to 6' of water using double jigs.
https://i.imgur.com/hmqS90r.jpg
I end up with a lot of small -8" bluegill which are still fun to catch. But I also wind up with a lot of 8"+ bluegill also. A metal hook stringer with the fish doubled up/2 per hook.
https://i.imgur.com/TQvJxJ2.jpg
Using the same setup (double jib) in the same area produces a lot of crappie and a couple perch. Tossed 50+ crappie back that day keeping fish 13" or bigger along with a couple perch. You can only see 1 perch on the stringer.
https://i.imgur.com/EcxIFGQ.jpg
There are 2 perch there, 1 is covered up by the crappie
https://i.imgur.com/lVQGNPE.jpg
In the summer I'll use plastics, small spoons, bobbers with worms/crawlers/jigs, roadrunners, etc. Mainly targeting catfish in the summer I use an ultra-lite on the side to keep me busy. Come fall I'm back on the panfish and mainly use dropshots and crawlers & typically fish +/- 6' of water 50'/60' past the edge of the weed beds. Don't get a lot of crappie there but I do catch tons of bluegill & perch. End up with a lot of dinks but there's a lot of keepers there also. I'll typically fish for +/- 3 hours and it's non-stop action.
https://i.imgur.com/Mzcc6BW.jpg
If I went out to deeper water 9'+ I'd be in the crappie and huge bluegill using tipped jigs or minnows on the bottom/vertical jigging. That's a long way out in a kayak so I fish +/ 1/2 mile out and enjoy myself. The occasional catfish keeps things interesting while dropshotting with ul equipment.
https://i.imgur.com/vgn1ivZ.jpg
Best thing is to keep trying & testing different depths/area's and throw the kitchen sink at them until you find a combo that works for that area/situation.
Nice catch! You should have enough for 100 meals !
Couldn't have said it better - except - the lures I posted catch everything all the time as long as I can locate fish. One guy I fish with will only cast a red body/chartreuse tail Crappie Magnet and can almost keep up with me fish for fish.Quote:
Best thing is to keep trying & testing different depths/area's and throw the kitchen sink at them until you find a combo that works for that area/situation.
Hand tied jigfly and float.Attachment 388828
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I’m impressed by all of your comments and experiences! Wow! Some of those are real chunkers ol’ son! Thanks for the reply
i know a spot ,just saying :Rofl
I have had good luck with a drop shot rig.
I use a home tied fly # 8 to 12 aberdeen hook,Chenille body with a craft fir tail.
These flies are very durable and hold up well to the gills attacks.
For scent I use 1/2 of a crappie nibble tempered or a very small piece of a power wiggler.
Caught a lot of dinks but also boated some 9 inch gills, some nice bass,a few northers,
perch, and crappies.
Follow the ice fishing secret to find large panfish, look for overlooked waters. These are often kept secrets of those who have searched them out; so if successful don't blow it for those who have also done the work to find them.
On most waters first find the bluegills, and then you hunt for the schools with the bigger ones in them. Sizes in sunfish often tend to segregate.
Classic of course is the center of spawning beds, if you wish to fish them. In that case you are damning the best quality fry since those in the center beds from the biggest males normally have the best chance of surviving. Harvesting out of those centers dooms the deserted spawns there. Nests on the edges of spawning beds have very close to 100% fry mortality. Replacement in bluegill populations is generally from the nests in the middle of the beds.
In the north be especially careful not to overharvest your biggest sizes. It has been said that a ten inch bluegill is very likely to be about as many years old as it has inches. Also the bigger the bedding males the longer and larger the fry grow before sexing out and competing for bedding space. The longer they live before sexing out the bigger they will be, since they don't grow much after that.
All that being said, one can "sample" bed centers during spawn to see the size of the bluegills in that particular body of water. Just be sure to sample several bedding areas because different areas of a body of water may have different size local populations.
[QUOTE=RLS40;4074328]I have had good luck with a drop shot rig.
I use a home tied fly # 8 to 12 aberdeen hook,Chenille body with a craft fir tail.
RLS40
Are you tying fly on a dropper line off of main line or tying directly to main line like a traditional drop shot? Thanks.
My best bream have been caught on crickets, or a fly rod with small/medium flys.
flyrod Attachment 388919 or casting Attachment 388920 or float with meal worms Attachment 388921 it's all good !Attachment 388922
Re: RLS40 - Drop shot with a fly sounds like a dandy way to catch them.
[QUOTE=moonrunner;4074432]I tie the fly direct to the line using a Palomar knot.Quote:
Originally Posted by RLS40
The fly sticks out 90 degrees from the main line.
If legal a jig can be for a weight.
We can use three flies by law but I find one is sufficient .
1/64 or 1/48 black round head jig with inch or inch and a quarter pearl white or black rat tail shad bait on 2# Gamma line. If the drag is set right, this will hold the bonus fish well over line test on UL rated rods that sometimes join the party.
Small pieces of cheap hot dog on a #4 or #6 Mutu Tournament Light circle hook, 4 lb line and a slip bobber, little to no weight attached to the line, 6'6" UL St Croix rod...dynamite in my small neighborhood ponds.