big bluegill in short hot water ?

Yes they were , a lot of them bit right up against the bank in 2 foot of water , feeding on something is my guess , not on beds and rather aggressive on the takes .
sat down in one spot , on some concrete in the shade and proceeded to hammer em good ....
and I mean every like every cast got bit , not kidding ....
around noon time under a willow tree out in west Texas
let them all swim off , 2 foot under a float with a tiny 1/64 handtie slowly dragging it along ....
KABOOM is always near :highfive

2’ of water isn’t much fighting room, they must have come up like popping a champagne cork;)

Sounds fun. I like it when it’s like that

No matter how hot the water is they have to eat to survive. Small jigs are deadly on everything and you sure had it made in the shade. Are you tipping them with nibbles or fishing them plain? They seem to fight harder in the heat. Some are spawning again right now here.

KABOOM!

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Originally Posted by Central Minn

2’ of water isn’t much fighting room, they must have come up like popping a champagne cork;)

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that's a fact , several took drag on my ultra light , right frisky little fish for sure

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Originally Posted by JUNGLEJIMJIGS

No matter how hot the water is they have to eat to survive. Small jigs are deadly on everything and you sure had it made in the shade. Are you tipping them with nibbles or fishing them plain? They seem to fight harder in the heat. Some are spawning again right now here.

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I about always tip every jig , the sunfish family seems to lose them little sunfish minds over a tipped jig , glo white berkley crappie nibbles outshine every other type of jig tipper in most cases , short of real food items , like worms and such .
These fish are feeding on something by the bank , not sure exactly what , it may be fry or small minnows , but to be sure you will see a few hit things right by the bank in that spot this time of year in the shady areas .

Nice, Ketchn. Those are some good sized pans.
Bob

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Originally Posted by BobC

Nice, Ketchn. Those are some good sized pans.
Bob

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Perfect eaters for sure :highfive

That looks like an amazing time! Do you have a picture of your 1/64 oz. hand tie? I'm going to start tying my own soon and am curious what yours looks like.

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Originally Posted by BDBFishing

That looks like an amazing time! Do you have a picture of your 1/64 oz. hand tie? I'm going to start tying my own soon and am curious what yours looks like.

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Jim aka JUNGLEJIMJIGS ties them, he calls them mini ducktails....I will find a better image

Thank you! I appreciate it!

I love to fish for crappie, walleye, and catfish but there is nothing more FUN than tossing a topwater or a dry fly into a bream bed. Those things are super aggressive. Hard fighters for their size as well. That's about the only use for a fly rod that I have, and there are trout waters here. I prefer spinning rigs for trout.

2 years ago my FIL and I went offshore fishing out of Pensacola. Our guide put us on some reefs and we found a few red and vermillion snapper, but nothing big and no big numbers. So we got to talking while waiting on a bite and we mentioned that we do some bream fishing back home. Guide asks us how that is, of course my FIL mentioned that it's just action packed but the fish generally aren't very big. Ok, guy says, we're gonna change things up a little. We had some live minnows but were using a jig of some sort, so we tied up some minnows on a chicken rig and went after em. I can't say how many we got but the triggerfish couldn't be missed, it's almost as if there were a few million of them down there. Those are like Bream. Tons of them, they are colonial, easy to catch, and HARD fighters. After about 10 of them I was worn out. My rig had two hooks on it and it wasn't uncommon to catch two triggers on one cast. Talk about getting a workout. Good eating too!

if ya ever get the chance to fish offshore, DO IT. it's a completely different experience, and you'll want to throw the freshwater rigs in the trash because of how many fish can be caught. We got tired before we ever limited out. FIL was done after about 5 or 6 of them, I got maybe a dozen. Hung one red snapper that went 33 lbs. IIRC the record is around 50lb, so I wasn't even close but my goodness, the amount of strength that those fish have is out of this world. Pulled him in from 102 FOW, dropped minnow on the reef and started to reel up and then the rod bent over and about pulled me overboard with it.

reinforces the position that a bluegill sitting right in the middle of its food supply burns fewer calories than one swimming back and forth between “comfort zones” and feeding zones.