Bluegill - Big Bluegill

Do you love big bluegill?

Which produces the biggest and most fish in your experience and or opinion?

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I've got no ground to stand on here...... I've never used crickets!

I suspect however, that it's like anything else in that different conditions require different baits.

I fish wigglers all year, but it I like fishing crickets late Summer and early Fall along with the wigglers. I guess my thinking is once the grasshoppers are of bait size, I fish crickets to "match the hatch". I know a lot of people fish crickets from Spring to Fall.

It's pretty much a worm gig here in the Mason Dixon area and Delaware. Have to get down near the VA-N Carolina border before crickets become the main course. I have never used crickets so it would be cool to give them a try!

   Down here in the south we get 100 crickets for $3.50, our answer would be crickets and my second choice would be crickets and if I run out I would go get more crickets. Caught a 14 lb. catfish on a flyrod with a cricket fishing for bluegill. If yall up north never get to fish with crickets you need to take a trip south and experience  fishing for bluegill with crickets, and I will bet that some way some how yall will figure out how to ship crickets north of the Mason-Dixon line. Bluegill bite crickets like pit bulldogs at a postmans convention, so if you can try crickets.     LOFR

Every baitshop I know of up here sells crickets, I've just never tried them. You have to remember that during the course of a "normal" year, us northern folks fish all during the winter, too. Crickets don't lend themselves to temps in the teens! I've just always used waxworms, as they are available year-round and are good fish producers.

I used to use grasshoppers as a boy, does that count?

When you're fishing crickets on a fly rod, do you use one of those long-shank cricket hooks, or something shorter?

Can crickets survive a false cast, or do you roll cast them?

Thanks,

Jonathan

I started using crickets in the spring and fished them through the summer.  About the only time I use bee moths or worms is when I forget my cricket bucket or the bait shop is closed.  Gas stations don't sell crickets in my area.  In the colder parts of the year I'll use wigglers or bee moths, but once the water warms up crickets are king. 

Probably 90% of the blugill fishing that I do is with crickets. I get them delivered to the house for about $40 for 2000.  Some places around here are selling a tube (75 crickets if you're lucky) for $6. Some of the guys I have fished with use only small (3/4" or less ) plastic grubs.  Even going to 2 lb line , I can't catch fish with them. I put a lot of crickets in the cage when I fish. Hate chasing them around the cage when I run low. If they jump out of my hand onto the ground or the bottom of the boat, good for them, freedom. Wastes too much time chasing them . Redear are supposedly more worm eaters, but using both crickets and redworms/ nightcrawlers, I seem to catch more on crickets. To each their own but I do enjoy catching those big gills.

crickets work best for me i feed them potatoes slices the day before, if i can,t get crickets red worms with no weight or float,i have a 7' ultralite that works great, with cricks you also get other fish,

They also like orange slices.

I mostly dont like fooling with crickets, so I use worms.

nightcrawlers are my choice; i use a big wad and just wait; if the fish pick at my bait too much then i use less on my hook;  with a crawler i can catch just about anything that is in the water and thats what i like more than anything about fishing: variety. good luck guys

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