Hey, if I saw a kid walking down the street with a crappie like that I would take it from him and run to the nearest baitshop and register it for a citation!
Naww, just kiddin. Great fish, guys!
Yeah thanks Jason. That mess of fish came from Houghton Lake in Michigan. Caught those a few years back and the fishing there has gone down hill some. I do have a website if you would like to check it out it's masterfishtaxidermy.com Do you have any…
From a fellow fish taxidermist... Excellent work! Love the goldish green colors!.. Very nice. I've got a couple of mounts mixed in with my photos if you care to see them.
You know what's funny...
I was looking at the thumbnails of recently added photos and went right by this one because I thought it was real! Excellent job. Five stars.
11 1/4" 24oz. Grayling area. Largest Shellcracker was 11 1/2"from Duck Lake and was released.
Favorite place to catch bluegill?
Houghton Lake and Hurron River chain of lakes in Michigan. Also some lakes in the Grayling area in northern Michigan that produce some dandy gills. One is a designated trout lake and the other is owned by the state of Michigan, catch and release only, artificial lures only and only open June-August. Lots of effort to fish this lake but well worth it. Gills run from 7-11+" Large Mouth Bass range from 14-20" and some of the bigest Pumkinseeds I have ever seen. A buddy of mine Ralph caught a Pumpkinseed a few years back that must have went 11" and that is huge for a Seed, will try to find pic of it and post soon.
Do you have a pond? If so, describe it.
No but my buddy Mark does and he has raised some very nice Bluegills and Large Mouth. Mark is the friend of mine that caught Bubba The Big Boy.
Randy,
Sounds like we have fished some of the same waters for panfish.I live in Wyandotte and like to fish the canals and backwater areas of lks.Erie , St. Clair and the Detroit river. I used to fish out on the Portage lake Huron river chain , the traffic on the road is as bad as the boat traffic on the lake
Hey Randy...nice bunch of pictures, man! And some superfine taxidermy work to boot. Do you do replicas or skin mounts? Like you. I too am finding that some big bluegill water is often small, public lakes or community owned ponds that are very much overlooked by the mainstream, yet have some magnum weight gills in them. See ya Jim
I considered Ed a good friend and used to buy all my tackle way back when he had his bait shop in the garage in front of his house. If I recall Ed had one of your stringers of fish in his shop.
Anyway I always liked Ed and wonder what he is doing now. Last I heard he was divorced and lost the shop.
I use a 10' or 12' rod when fishing slip floats (slider rig). These rods are specially made for float fishing.
This is a great way to fish a lot of waters which are deeper than your rod. The longer rod assists in "punching" that float rig out to you…
Last year (2009)was the first year slip floating for me and found it to be very effective.Would like folks that are into this kind of fishing to post photos of gear and tips on the best rods ,reels ,bait and terminal tackle to use.
Sharon, I've got some other very colorful Bluegill, including another "Purple Coppernose" and a "Blue Coppernose", in my photos...check them out. Good old Southern California Bluegill have some crazy colors!
Afraid Walt is right Nick. I think you can attain balance, but not trophy status. If you want trophies, going to have to pick which one is more important to you.
Walt is describing a pond scenario that I'm contemplating building over the next couple years after I get my main pond up and running and that is a 'kid friendly' pond. Inspired by a recent PondBoss article, I think having an overstocked bass pond w…
Josh is right - catfish won't do a good job of keeping the bluegill thinned out. Additionally, they relish pellet food, and once they get to be four or five pounds they'll literally knock the bluegill out of the way with their tails to keep the blue…
I just noticed you said you want trophy bluegill and bass - it's nearly impossible to achieve both in a pond, as the ideal environment for growing big bass is overpopulated bluegill (lots of bluegill in the ideal forage size range) which invariably…
No, you don't want to keep smaller bass - they're the key to growing trophy-sized bluegill. I never allow any bass at all to be kept from ponds I manage for big bluegill; that way the bass overpopulate, which means they eat most bluegill at the fry…
Could you give me an idea how deep the water needs to be for a bluegill "nursery" ? Some of those nests look like they are out of the water. What is the deepest?