Bluegill on the Fly

[mkwerx]

Did a bit of fishing after the garage sale this evening. My cousin and I hit a place my neighbor who manages the parks for a municipality (in the tri county area thats as specific as I am getting cuz the place is public)

He said it was a bluegill pond. We were figuring maybe a pond full of smaller fish. Boy were we surprised! Heres the big one of the day. Ty caught it (using a rod borrowed from me, on a fly I tied and gave him - gotta share some of that glory!) - at first we thought it was a carp because it ran and bulldogged. Then he got it close and we both about pooped when we saw it was a gill.



The other fish we got were all respectable in their own right - hand sized fish were the average only a few dinks caught. We were fishing streamer flies mostly - 1.5 or 2 inch long minnow or leech imitations.

This was one of my larger fish of the day



A good eater size if we were keeping fish.

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[Sgt Nambu]

Very nice bluegills! Tasty little fish!

 

[Caveman Jim]

I can member back a few years, quite a few as a matter of fact, when we (kids) fly fished for bass, crappie & bluegill on slow moving rivers in N. C......
Nice to find some different action these days since our normal quarry has been depleted.

 

[Stomper]

How'd you get the hat on that fish?!

 

[Howard1955]

I love bluegills. When I was a kid, Dad would take me fishing at a pond where we'd catch 50 or more at a time. Then a great southern-style fish fry!

Thanks for this post - it brings back some very good memories.

 

[KKG]

Best "Bait" I ever found for Crappy and Bill Gills is a single Gold plate - bare - hook! They will bite on ANYTHING

 

[MrMillspecer]

Looks like fun. I too use to catch Bluegill and Perch when I was a young lad. When we ran out of worms or grasshoppers we would cut up one of the fish and use it's meat for more bait. Then found out jigs and spinners work great as well.

Nice job on the fly. I took fly tying in high school in Meridian Idaho. The good old days. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Mistman]

Warmwater fish are fun on flies no matter what the size. I like pulling a black ant through the lily's, caught a few respectable bass that way too.

 

[bbbass]

In the late '70s I was in N.C. and used a fly rod and poppers for both bass and bluegill. A 9 weight rod for largemouth and a smaller rod and smaller poppers for bluegill. Yes, they will bite almost anything but so much fun to use poppers for the topwater hit!!!

I was looking thru my storage of old lures and I still have some of those poppers... yellow with a black stripe and a yellow fluff tail.

IMO there is nothing tastier than the perch family!!!

 

[KKG]

Northern Pike is my personal favorite. Moved out here to WA just before the opener and asked how big they(Trout) had to be to keep. I really thought the other kids were kidding me when they said 6"! I had been using 9" Suckers for "Bait" out in Northern Minnesota just before I left there!!!

 

[MrMillspecer]

In the late '70s I was in N.C. and used a fly rod and poppers for both bass and bluegill. A 9 weight rod for largemouth and a smaller rod and smaller poppers for bluegill. Yes, they will bite almost anything but so much fun to use poppers for the topwater hit!!!

I was looking thru my storage of old lures and I still have some of those poppers... yellow with a black stripe and a yellow fluff tail.

IMO there is nothing tastier than the perch family!!!

Agreed that top water fishing is a hoot. I like to twitch a small silver rapala on the surface when fishing the John Day and the small mouth bass go crazy. Mourning and evenings work best for me.

Try to make it look like a wounded fish.

 

[thorborg]

Very nice bluegills! Tasty little fish!

Too much bone spitting for me, but fun to catch.

 

[thorborg]

Agreed that top water fishing is a hoot. Just twitch a small silver rapala on the surface when fishing the John Day and the small mouth bass go crazy.

Try to make it look like a wounded fish.

View attachment 378569

Small mouth bass fillet out real nice and do a wonderful job enhancing the flavor of butter.

 

[No_Regerts]

I always had great luck with a San Juan worm on any panfish.

 

[Timbertodd]

Looks like a blast Mark. I love fishing for them with my 3 wt.

 

[mkwerx]

Todd - I'm not sure he would've landed that fish on a 3 weight. Maybe if he were a tad more experienced - but there was a lot of weeds the fish could tangle on. That Cabela's glass rod really showed it's backbone though - still a fun fight but he was able to steer the fish away from the nasty stuff by putting the wood to her. 4X tippet and lightly hooked - the hook popped right out after we got her in. I could barely get my hand around her to hold her for the unhook. I wish all the gills in Hagg were that big!

 

[WAYNO]

I've fished the Northwest my whole life. Salmon, steelhead, sturgeon, bottom fish, trout and some panfish. I took my fishing way too serious, and I supplied a lot of folks with fish.

More and more, I fished alone, then one day I decided I wasn't gonna fish any more. Sold my boat, and when I need to fish, I've got plenty of folks to bum a trip with.

I think I could satisfy much of my fishing urge by sitting in a chair on the bank and catching panfish. When I was young, crappie was easy on the upper Willamette. That's changed. i don't find crappie where they used to be. Smallmouth have taken over the lower Willamette and Columbia, with numbers I've never seen in years past. (Turd Lake), really called Mission reservoir outside St. Paul has good numbers of crappie. So, the panfishing scene has changed in this area, but there are plenty of new opportunities.

WAYNO.

 

[Timbertodd]

Todd - I'm not sure he would've landed that fish on a 3 weight. Maybe if he were a tad more experienced - but there was a lot of weeds the fish could tangle on. That Cabela's glass rod really showed it's backbone though - still a fun fight but he was able to steer the fish away from the nasty stuff by putting the wood to her. 4X tippet and lightly hooked - the hook popped right out after we got her in. I could barely get my hand around her to hold her for the unhook. I wish all the gills in Hagg were that big!

I have heard good things about the Cabelas glass rods. And ahmen about bigger ones in Hagg. I got into a bunch om Hagg the begining of June that went 6"-8". That one pictured is a toad!

 

[bbbass]

Agreed that top water fishing is a hoot. I like to twitch a small silver rapala on the surface when fishing the John Day and the small mouth bass go crazy. Mourning and evenings work best for me.

Try to make it look like a wounded fish.

View attachment 378569

These have worked wonderfully for me. Twitched or cranked slowly.


Out on Phillips Reservior before the illegal plant of perch, we used to rip Fat Raps as fast as we could reel.

 

[Flymph]

Fun stuff! I've been seriously tempted to get back into fishing for little panfish. There is nothing more fun or tastier than bluegill. I mostly catch and release, but sometimes the fishing is just too good.

That settles it, I'm going to urge a trip up to the family beach property, which is on a private lake. Pretty decent fishing there too.