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User submitted bluegill fishing tips
Thanks to everyone for submitting their bluegill and crappie fishing tips and techniques. It's great to have help to make this site grow.
Name: Darren I am a bank beater so all of these tips are intended for the poor boys like me who have no boat. If this helps you guys who have the freedom to cover the other 99% of the lake then so be it. When fishing for crappies, I like to break off about 1.5 inches of a Gulp Earthworm, thread it onto a #10 Tru-Turn Hook and fish it weightless. I cast it as far as I can count it down and slowly swim it back. You have to experiment with how many seconds to count down, but the size of fish can be tremendous. It may be imitating the gizzard shad we have here, but for whatever reason it works when the bigger fish stop hitting the minnows under your bobber. I'm not much of a Bobber Guy anyway - too boring. So, I buy a package (not a jar) of Gulp Earthworms and they last me a season. It's cheaper than minnows, and I don't have to throw away unused live bait. My favorite technique catches both bedded bluegill and bedded crappie. I sight fish beds with pink Berkely Crappie Nibbles on a #10 Tru-Turn hook fished weightless again. I take two crappie nibbles, lightly press them together and thread them onto the hook. An accurate cast later and your fighting a male bluegill in spawning colors. If I need to cast farther, I just crush more Nibbles together at the same time. Using four nibbles won't let you cast twice as far, but the bigger size attracts fish quickly. Crappie Nibbles fall VERY slowly through the water column, giving skittish big boys a chance to have a good look at the bait before they eat it. The slow fall rate also gives you a chance to jig these slowly through a bedding flat or even accurately land in the nest of that tight-lipped trophy that won't do more than sniff at your other offerings. Drop some pinched crappie nibbles right on the floor of the bed they are guarding and suddenly your stealing the eggs. They may blow at the hook first, but if you are patient you'll have a picture-worthy memory you can be proud of. I specifically use Tru-Turn Hooks and pink Berkely Crappie Nibbles. The hooks are very thin, letting you unbend them out of brush or trees, and the design really does give you more upper jaw hookups, read that "Less lost fish". As for pink - I read somewhere that bluegill see the color red better than other colors, so the pink is a close second. Note: These are not "cast into the wind" techniques, but when conditions are right these techniques have let me outfish most of the other bankbeaters within eyesight. Good Luck, and let me know how it works for you!
Name: Tyler A good place to go bluegill fishing is Stansbury park lake Utah. if you happen to go there to bluegill fish.big bluegill fishing is really easy. if you want big bluegill then go to the bridge and you will see a cement platform and if you use bread molded on a number 10 or 8 hook than drop it right off where it gets deep just wait for a little while(or a few seconds)then you'll probably get a bite. if you want to catch a LOT of little bluegill then do the same thing but do it where you launch your boat and use a number 14 to 16 size hook (and BRING MORE BREAD)
Name: Mark Hi I just discovered BluegillFishing.org and read your comments about reels. I agree that reel choice isn't very important. If anybody ever hooks a bluegill that can burn out a reel I REALLY want to know where they were fishing. My vote would go to spincast reels. They are easy and let you enjoy the fishing, and I'm a hardcore Zebco fan. I'm 44, have been fishing for 39 years, and that is all that I use. I've tried baitcast, spinning, and fly reels, and in my opinion their mechanics just distract you from enjoying the simple act of fishing. People make fun of me for using a "kiddy" reel, but when the spin fisherman see me cast a 1/64th oz. jig and 1" twister tail 60 or 70 feet their jaws are usually dragging in the creek. I've caught everything from bluegill to musky with my Zebcos and see no reason to use anything else. So there you have my two cents. Get thee a Zebco and thin out the bluegill population to encourage those bulls we love so much. By the way, my health has knocked me out of fishing for a couple of years but I'm getting back into it again. I will find you some good spots here in central PA so you you can open your Pennsylvania page. Thanks for the site.
Name: Larry I like both lake fishing and pond fishing. Most of my lake fishing is done from a 12’ boat with electric trolling motor. My rig will be a ML rod and Zebco underspin reel with 6# Stren. I always buy the U.S.A. weighted bobber made of balsa with a rubber sleeve over the line groove to keep it in position on your line. You can cast these things for a mile and always hit your target. The secret to casting bobbers for bluegills is before the bobber hits the water you have to stop it in the air. This will straighten out your line and put your bait in a position beyond your bobber. The advantage is when the bait begins it’s slow and enticing drop, there is no slack in your line and any hint of a bluegill nibble can be sensed. If you just cast out a bobber and let it plop down into the water , your bait will fall and your line will be full of curls and slack. This will result in a lot of feeding and less catching. I use the long shank Aberdeen hook because the Bluegill is notorious for swallowing the hook. I don’t use a weight on my line, I prefer the free fall of my bait. If I want to get the bait down faster I tie on a black ant or ice jig. Wax worms and maggots are good bite getters anywhere you go. I took my cousin to a local fishing derby when he was younger. He, and a girl whose granddad also had maggots for bait, won all the prizes and categories there were. Good luck. I like to broil my fish on a broiler pan covered with heavy duty foil. Put the fillets in a bowl, drizzle on some olive oil and toss them around to coat them. Spread them out on the broiler pan and sprinkle ever so sparingly some Tony Chachere’s Creole seasoning. Cook them up to 4 minutes, just until they turn white and not get brown. Take them out, flip them over, add another sprinkle of Creole seasoning and back in for 2 minutes. If you’re having potatoes or rice , then you should pour the juices from the pan on them after removing the fish. Yum Yum !
Name: Greg Lately I've taken to maintaining a 10-gallon aquarium filled with several small bluegill that I've caught on Lake Lanier in Northeastern GA. They're very versatile for catfish, spotted bass and even the occasional striped bass. The lake was way down for a year and change and recently has risen back to almost its full pool. While it was down, all kinds of grass and weeds grew up along the shoreline, and now all that submerged grass is home to hordes of small bluegill and bream. On order to catch these guys, I use a #10 jig hook (Eagle Claw #575 or similar) and crickets or red wigglers; the jig hook lets me run part of the worm all the way up and the 90-degree bend holds it in place. I put the hook 1 to 2 feet below a weighted foam bobber and fish close to the edge of the grass, fallen trees, or where I can see a dropoff or overhang at the water's edge. The #10 hooks almost always guarantee a hookup, and because the jig hook tends to stay point-upward, most of the hooksets are in the upper jaw. With these timy bluegill I usually don't need to set the hook at all; just give them a second or two to really grab the bait, then give a gentle tug and start reeling. I mentioned stocking these guys in an aquarium...When I fish, I like to get down to business right away, so I just grab a few the ones from the aquarium and keep them in a bait bucket with an aerator. Then, once I'm done using them as bait, or I run out, I'll either catch more to use for that outing or to take home and put into the aquarium for the next trip.
Name: Zach Hey guys, I was just looking over the site and I think that it is a great start. I live in MI and am a huge fan of tracking down big bluegills. I was looking over the tips and saw that most of the ideas for catching gills were for beginners which is great! We all have to start somewhere and the whole act of getting a pole into someones hands and starting them on a hobby which will last a life time is great. I however wanted to throw in a couple of more advanced techniques that help me catch fussy gills and crappies when they are on their beds. When the panfish move up to spawn here in MI it is durring late April early May. The water is just reaching about 60-65 degrees which is the perfect temp for panfish. When they are on their beds it is very important to not crowd the fish. Give them a little room. The first thing that I love to do when gills and slabs clam up is to tie on a small drop shot rig and begin to work it over the beds. To do this you will need a small circle hook and a weight that will keep to the bottom even as you begin to pull your line through the water. I would suggest a drop shot wieght of 5-6 lrg. split-shot. This will allow you to work your bait in a stagnant possition over the bed without dragging the wieght through the bed itself. To set up this rig begin by tieing on your hook. You will do this by using a palomar knot. If you do not know what that is then look it up on google. I can gaurentee that this knot is not only good for dropshotting but is one of the best all around knots that you can ever learn to tie. Approx. 12-16 inches above where your sinker is going to be you will tie on your hook using the pallomar knot. You will see how to tie this knot when you look it up. The importance of this knot is to allow the hook to stand out from the line and give the bait something to be suspended on. Once you have your hook tied on tie on your sinker at the bottom of the line and you are ready to begin. Well almost ready. When I do type of fishing it is normally with artifishal baits. I like using soft plastics the best. Gulps, maggots or waxworms are great along with very small swimbaits like a tiny zoom fluke. Thread these through the "nose" of the bait to allow it to dance and move when you are playing over the top of the bed. I cast out over and beyond the bed that I am targeting. Then, by simply raising and lowering my rod tip to I begin to bring the bait back towards the bed. You can jerk and pause the bait, letting it flutter down to the bottom and then rasing it up and jiggling the rod tip making it look injured. You can pop your rod tip and then reel slightly and repeat to give it a swimming motion but the most important thing is when you get near the bed SLOW DOWN. You cant over work the bait when you are around sagnant fish. It will spook them. My favorite thing to do when I am right near the bed is to drag the weight to within two or three inches of the edge of the bed and then kill the bait. This will let it sink slowly down into the bed of the fish. The fish might ignore it for a little bit but eventualy he is not going to like having something in his bed at all. He will usually suck it in and move towards the edge to spit it back out again. Wait untill he starts to move with the lure and then just lift up on the rod and begin to reel. You do not need to set the hook hard with fish like this. You might just rip the bait out of their mouth. By lifting and reeling, the fish will feel it and try to swim away. He will essentially hook himself. This technique of killing the bait works best with minnow like lures. It will make it look like a small bluegill or minnow is trying to come in and steel the eggs. Bull bluegill don't like that at all and are very protective of their nest sights. This rig will also work on bedding Crappies but you must be very patient with them. They are even tighter lipped than bluegills. I hope this rig can help you land some of those fish that just wont bite. Good luck and keep a pole in your hands as much as you can. Zach
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