Whats your favorite bluegill fly?

[Troutman 0]

Mine is a Jim's Special

 

[Guest]

I will vouch for Jim's favorite, It is a damn good fly. I didnt do as well as I thought I would with the smaller versions but the size 8(is that right Jim>?) ones made a great gill summer for me a couple seasons ago. It was my number one gill fly that year.

 

john

 

 

[SALMONATOR 0]

I love bluegills, but they've got to be the dumbest fish alive. My favorite fly for them is one that fits in their mouths. I don't even bother to tye flies specifically for bluegills anymore. I mostly just use the "duds" that didn't make the cut for my trout boxes. I know that there are a few flies that work a little better than anything else (with emphasis on the word "little"), but generally I find that if you can make it look a little bit alive and it's small enough that they can wrap their lips around it, you're in business.

 

Al

[Guest]

salmonator

 

Are you talking about tiny bluegills or 9 inch plus bluegills. Becasue I beg to differ about the bigger gills taking anything you dangle in front of them.

 

john

 

 

[Guest]

Topwater & subsurface.

 

[SALMONATOR 0]

RB,

 

Yup, I'm talking about pretty much all of 'em. The smaller ones are a hundred times easier I'll agree, but even the big ones I've taken on a chunk of a cigarette butt or a piece of shoelace impaled on a hook and twitched in there face (maybe I've been spoiled by fishing farm ponds too much for them, but then I've had the same response lake fishing too). They ain't exactly rocket scientists. Those Foam spiders that Jim posted above are probably the best type of flies I've ever used for them though. Subsurface, a royal coachman bucktail wet is tough to beat. I don't know if it's the peacock or the red in it but That's one of the flies that I've found makes 'em go a little crazier than usual.

 

Al

[Guest]

for some reason orange foam spider with chartreuse legs outfished all the other colors combined last year for me. thats on the surface, sub surface a very simple bright chenille with rubber legging mat'l as a tail has taken more fish than i'd care to admit.

 

I have to agree they aint the brightest fish in the world. During the softwater most of the time they'll hit dang near anything, especially when they are in the shallows. Winter time through the ice they can get finicky sometimes, many times just looking at even bait, but BWO dries fished tightlining method will take a lot of very wary gills.

 

steve

[Guest]

As requested, the receipe for the Carter's Dragon. Great fly. I picked up some very nice 10 inch bluegills the other day when nobody else was having any luck with their wroms and crickets.

 

Carter’s Dragon

 

Hook: 1X long hook size 6 to 12 (take your pick)

Thread: Black 6/0

Tail: Small bunch of black rabbit fur – 2 pieces of silver Krystal Flash on each side

Body: Black chenille or mohair yarn

Collar: Hackel, either black, grizzly, olive or silver badger

Beard: Black Krystal Flash

Eye: Black or silver dumbbell eyes

 

 

Fairly straightforward fly to tie. Tie in a bunch of black rabbit fur for the tail. Add two pieces of Krystal flash on each side of the tail for some flash. Tie in the chenille and wrap the thread to the eye of the hook. Tie in the dumbbell eyes. Wrap the chenille up to the eyes and tie off. Clip excess chenille. Tie in a hackle feather by its tip. Make two wraps for the collar, tie off and clip excess. Tie in a small bunch of black Krystal Flash on the under side of the hook directly in front of the dumbbell eyes. The Krystal flash should reach to the end of the hook.

 

Fish this pattern by letting it sink for about 10 seconds. Then make very quick 3-6” strips with a two second pause between strips. This is an excellent winter and early spring bluegill fly, but hold on, because bass and crappie find it equally irresistible.

 

 

Good luck

 

Jim Smith

 

[Guest]

Jim gave me that pattern several months ago. You need to listen to him, that`s a good fly!! It has produced my grandad some crappie, but I don`t know about bluegills, but I`m sure it will. Tight lines and good tyin!-redneck

[Guest]

Big Bluegills can be tough to find and even tougher to catch. During the spawn, a whole lot of flies (and even foreign objects) will work, but later in the year, when they are off the nests, and the 3" fish swarm the shallows, finding and catching the big ones is a whole different story.

 

I guarantee that if you can't see them while you fish for them, you are missing fish because a Bluegill can mouth and spit a fly as fast as or faster than any fish alive. Next time while sight fishing, just watch how they do it. Consistently catching the big ones is never a foregone conclusion with flies. They can occasionally be finicky even with bait. I have seen really large Bluegills be even more selective about dry flies than large trout.

[Guest]

Luvinbluegills-------EXACTLY RIGHT

 

I am not talking about pond fishing. I am talking about fishing 15 to 20 foot deep for gills with flies, can be very hard. Extremely harder than catching trout at times.

 

John

[proboardermike 0]

my favorite is a size 14 yellow popper!!

[Guest]

I'm reminded of being almost forty years younger by this thread. Dear God, where did the time go?

 

Anyway- as a kid, I used to put together balsa and cork poppers in sizes from 16 up to 6 and 4; no big surprise there- when you're a kid, you often don't think about appropriate colors or bait imitation, you just go with what looks good to you, or what you have hanging around for leftover model paint! So, my popper stockpile spanned the spectrum as well as imitating accepted color offerings.

 

One of my most successful color combinations was a white-bellied, then orange side-striped at the mid-line, then yellow side striped above the orange, then capped with red or green.

 

During the summer (these days) I'll often take a piece of marabou or feather, all by itself, and go out on the dock to aggravate and watch the small fish nesting around my dock; trailing a piece of marabou, they'll swim up to it, look it over, nip at it, sometimes mouth it and almost as quickly spit it out. Simple things for simple minds. Great relaxation.

[Dble Haul 0]

QUOTE (luvinbluegills @ Mar 24 2004, 12:11 PM)

Consistently catching the big ones is never a foregone conclusion with flies. They can occasionally be finicky even with bait. I have seen really large Bluegills be even more selective about dry flies than large trout.

Bingo!

 

This fact is even emphasized in Terry and Roxanne Wilson's book on flyfishing for bluegills. The big girls (greater than ten inches) are not easy.

[Guest]

Love that book!