Year of the Bluegill

[flytire 0]

to steal a line from phish!

 

There is nothing..... ABSOLUTELY NOTHING better than a small foam spider to slam bluegills with!!

 

[blackdog1101 0]

Question for you bluegill'ers. What size hook do you prefer to use? I find if I use size 12 I am apt to get too many dinky fish. Our lakes are loaded with 4" bluegills, which I'd prefer to avoid. But to my eye size 8 looks too large. But I see some of you drop down to as small as size 18. So what size do you use for foam bugs & poppers? And what size for nymphs & wet flies? Thanks!

[ditz2 0]

I will add my samo $.o2 worth. Yellow craft foam spider in size 10. ( 8 to 14 )....Yellow 1/4" diam. popper on size 12. Made from 3 2mm craft foam disks punched with a paper hole punch and glued together with cv. Tail and hackle of choice. Blind Squirrel in size 10..( 10 to 6 )......soft hackle McGinty size 10. ( 12 to 8 )

 

I like yellow because....1.The fish like it...2. I can see it when there is foam on the water.....3.I can see it

 

BG also like small streamers. Mickey Finn tied in 'Blond' style and clouser style depending on how deep you need to go.

[BrookTroutAngler 0]

I LOVE to fish for bluegill. The lake I go to is about 1.5 hours away and the closet quality bluegill water- but it's worth it. We fish it with a float tube. Come April when they spawn, and throughout the spring and fall, they just go nuts to take a fly. An average day is 150 bluegill if you hit it right. I've used spiders, poppers, small and even larger wets, all sorts of nymphs, but in the end my favorite combo is a bluegill candy hopper trailed by a fbhe or a lightning bug. Topwater takes are explosive, and if they aren't in the mood for that, the nymph will slay em'. There are some little bluegill in that area, but 8" bluegill are not uncommon and my largest was a bit over 9". They are crazy fun to catch on my custom 7'3" TFO Finesse 2wt. Can't wait for April!

[fshrmanms 0]

There is some awesome bream fishing in my area a typical trip will yield 50 to a 100+ including a good number of 8" and 9" plus fish. I love poppers size 8 catches a lot of bream but a size six weeds out a lot of smaller fish. I also use the chernobyl ant tied on a size 10 hook. Various nymphs, leaches and terrestrials when they aren't hitting top water usually sizes 10 to 12.

[mikechell 0]

In my water, there are about half a dozen variety of sunfish, and all of them could be in the same hole. I catch plenty of smaller fish, and some really nice sized ones. I have fun with them all. Almost all of my poppers are tied on 8 or 10s. My sinking flies are mostly 8s. I don't seem to have any problems with size 8 being too big for smaller keepers.

[flytire 0]

a size 8 foam spider is perfect for the gills and sunnies in my area. they have no problem taking them

[Tee Nootsie Brasseau 0]

for the patasa I know that a size 8 hook is the good one. Smaller ones make to catch many small fish...and the 8 will hook a green trout or sac a lait and hold him....

[Fwp3 0]

Here's an invitation to go look at and Join BigBluegill.com It's a pretty dynamic site that you will really enjoy if you are a gill chaser!

 

Bill

[TheCream 0]

9 1/4"er from a mostly frozen pond yesterday in SE Ohio. She took the fly mentioned earlier in this post (I posted a pic), third Fish Ohio trophy citation size fish on that pattern in 2013 (two outings).