Do you love big bluegill?

Fly Suggestions

Hey guys, I'm new to the forum so I figured I'd do an intro before I get into the main topic, feel free to skip this paragraph if you don't care :). I'm Sean and Sunfish are among my favorite thing to fish for because of how many species there are, I often target and catch Bluegills, Pumpkinseeds, Green Sunfish, Hybrid Sunfish and Warmouth and hopefully someday I'll get to take a trip somewhere to catch Redears and Coppernose. Aside from fishing I'm an avid SCUBA diver and love to watch fish underwater, especially sunfish since they're very intelligent and display interesting behavior towards divers (and aggressive behavior when I swim into a nesting zone in the Spring). I also have been keeping fish (mainly natives) for over 2 years and have 8 tanks set up (5.5-75 Gallons) and as far as sunfish I have a female green and am hoping to get other species soon. Now getting on to this thread.

Can anyone suggest some good flies (dry or wet) to use for Bluegills and P-Seeds for this time of the year? I'd like to get some sunfish on flies at my local lake before the water gets to cold for them. Unfortunately half of the sunfish at this lake are stunted from overcrowding and the Bluegills average 2-6" (biggest I've caught was 10"), Pumpkinseeds average 2-5" (largest was 8.5-9"), and Greens are 1.5-6" (biggest was 8"). The reason I'm listing size is because I've tried certain flies and they've hit them but couldn't fit them in their mouths so I can't use anything to big here. There is another local lake I have with a better, healthier, and larger gill population about 40 minutes from me though so feel free to suggest bigger flies for there since they average 8-12".

Thanks in advance!

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Allen Morgan on September 30, 2014 at 6:35pm

I've got a good fix for overpopulated, stunted, sunnies.

Just drop a small Flathead Catfish in there, and give it a year......

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Permalink Reply by Sean Phillips on October 1, 2014 at 5:45am

Ok a lot if stuff to cover. I'm not sure what size tippet it is since it's been on for a while but fairly thin by the looks. I was using #12 bivisibles.

We're not near winter yet, been in the mid to high 70s all week strangely enough.

I've contemplated adding a flathead or two :). They're in the local creeks so adding one from the river wouldn't make it invasive.

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Permalink Reply by David, aka, "McScruff" on October 1, 2014 at 1:43pm

Ok, now I'm worried: tippet, or leader?
Two different things you know?
Tippets that are "on for awhile..." Well, mine don't last long. I use tippet rings on the leader, making tippet replacement easy peasy. But the leader stays in place.
So with the cutting and changing of flies, tippets are short lived.