User submitted bluegill fishing tips

Thanks to Darren for submitting his bluegill and crappie fishing tips and techniques. It's great to have help to make this site grow.
Name: Darren
State: Iowa

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!

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