All Blog Posts (702)

Been a while since I've been on due to all the trout action in CT.

One day I had recently was an evening panfish bite.

Earlier this month the area had some heavy downpours that must of caused a run off from the nearest crappie lake. One evening after fishing somewhere else, I stopped by 2 areas of the river that runs through that lake but below the dam of that lake where it's all river. Redbreasts were into a Rapala Original Floater and landed 5 no bigger than…

I liked this link to the story of the world record shellcracker.  It had a nice variety of pictures  Congratulations again to the angler!

http://mnoutdoorsman.com/forums/index.php?topic=24346.0

Many of my fishing buddies devote most of their time fishing for Bass....or Muskies.....or Walleyes, but rarely do they target panfish.....I enjoy my time on the water with them, and try not to spread myself too thin throughout the whole wacky bunch....however, when I start to get razzed about how often I like to fish for bluegills by my "buddies"....it seems more like ridicule.

This is the kinda stuff these guys send me....…

Gills and Crappie are starting to come in. Went out last night and boated 15 crappie all 10-13inch and 8 gills 9-10inch. Up here they are nice size. but very little fishing pressure. Everyone up here are after Walleye. All power to them.

Hi all, we are wanting to plan a bluegill fishing trip for my family in late May but I'm not sure where to go. We live in Granite City (by St. Louis, mo) and fish at Carlyle quite a bit but don't catch many gills with any size to them. I want to take my kids bluegill fishing because it is such a blast to catch them and I want them to love fishing like my husband and I do. I was thinking about Crab Orchard or something in So. Ill but my husband and I don't know the area or lakes. Any help or…

Went out to my honey hole just to check the water temperature and to my surprise it was in the mid 50 and the crappies were hitting night crawlers in 5-8 ft 

Well, was planning a trip to a new pond Friday. Just checked forcast, severe storms. Spring is a love hate relationship. I love the fishing(when I can go), but hate storms and wind. Wind, and fronts this year have been crazy. Also water really low around here,so we need the rain.

There has been some discussion lately on stunted bluegill and the overharvest of bluegill. I found this article, on how in Illinois they are looking into this problem. If anyone has anyother articles about this problem, and other bluegill problems, please post link.........Thanks Dwayne

http://www.inhs.uiuc.edu/releases/Diana_Wahl_OutdoorIL_0907.pdf

With hunting season a vague memory,  they openned the private lake for fishing.  I was there early , it was cool and cloudy and we had the place to ourselves.  Cindy, my wife,was, as always anticipating our usual luck at this spot. (80 acre lake and we rarely , if ever,  fish anywhere but this one spot on the boat…

Well friends here it is. My father in law and I went Bass fishing day before yesterday. I caught 7 Blue Gill all 1/2 pound or bigger on Rapala Bass plugs. I have never in my 45 years of fishing caught a gill on a bass lure but I caught seven of them on Wed. Beautiful fat gorgeous Bluegill. I also caught one Largemouth and three Smallmouth Bass and pop's caught three nice Smallmouth.

I saw what looked like a herd of small bass in about 15 inches of water about 20' from the boat and so…

Seems to me this idea has been done here before but I searched "Unusual Catches' and it came up empty .I'll post one now and more another time. I would like to see what folks think of as an "Unusual Catch " and see the diversity of photos of their fishing events. This Fish hit a huge spoon and was caught in the mouth . Is it an "Unusual Catch " ? I think so. Unusually Aggressive!…

  a guy on lake-link the other day commented that schools of fish always travel in counter-clockwise rotation, and that when the bite stops you should move down to shoreline/or docks to the left?  any thoughts??

Daffin's Lake - In the Beginning

Follow me on my journey to raise and catch a 2+ lb coppernose bluegill.

This is Daffin's Lake.  A natural, ~6 acre, rain fed depression in the panhandle of Florida inhabited by bluegill, large mouth bass, warmouth and the occasional alligator.  …

Hey everyone. My good friend Tom and i went out yesterday evening and thought we'd see if we could catch a few Bluegill and boy did we catch the fish. We decided to fish from the bank rather than our boats and waded in up to our waist. It was 97 degrees, the water was perfect and as we were about 30' off the bank there were monster Gills in beds all around out feet.

I put on a meal worm and cast it out as Tom was still rigging up and the second it hit the water a monster gill took it.…

Caught this dink  today,4/22/12 in a very shallow stream (Ringwood Brook) Took a small worm on a #10 hook. Apparently New Jersey does have Redears but I never caught one before .What do ya think Red Ear (gotta admit it looks like one ) or Pumpkinseed?

Redear sunfish (Lepomis microlophus) can grow to 10 inches, and have a long pointed…

http://bigbluegill.com/forum/topics/bank-spots?groupUrl=bank-busters&groupId=2036984%3AGroup%3A198982&id=2036984%3ATopic%3A213461&page=2#comments

Tuesday I hit the private lake again to find gills and seeds nesting. The lure I stuck with was a 4cm hot mustard muddler Rapala X-Rap.

While doing a slashbait retrieve with a few pauses and twitches, those bulls and pumpkinseeds were going crazy! The seeds were the ones being the most aggressive. Caught a total of 4 bulls, 3 seeds, and 1 yellow perch.

Also threw a 1/16 ounce white maribu right in front of many. Bluegills weren't too interested but those…

I'm sure most of us have fished at least one good sized creek where you never have any idea at all what you are going to catch. My example would be an Ohio River tributary in southern Indiana, where, from mid May to late October, you can catch, get ready, White Crappie, Black Crappie, Sauger, Saugeye, Blue Catfish, Channel Catfish, Flathead Catfish, (some white catfish maybe), white bass, Spotted Bass, Largemouth Bass, Smallmouth Bass, Bluegill, Warmouth, Rock Bass, Green Sunfish, Longear…

Sunday afternoon and evening a buddy and I hit a CT lake up his way.

What was working for me was that same 7cm firetiger Original Floater. I was carefully twitching the lure on the surface with occasional 3 second pauses. Plenty of swirls, love taps, and jumps. Caught a total of 4 pumpkinseeds, 2 bluegills, and 5 calicos.

Brought 3 calicos home and found 2 of them to be pregnant.