If You Find Them, Will They Bite

[bluegillboogieman]

OK, we've got a long list of live baits. Crickets are my favorite but I wonder if it really matters to them IF you know Gills are where you're putting the bait. I have put worms on after catching a few on crickets. They worked too. I'm not talking about cathing them on the bed but while hunting in likely structure.

I've started using small spinners for the first time in my life this spring and was stunned that they caught as many as they did. What!. They'll bite something besides crickets?

So...is it their preference or ours? What do ya'll think?

[Jim Gronaw]

Well Boogieman, its like this... I tend to get in a rut on either a specie, a place to fish or a tactic that is currently paying off for me. In 2007 it was blue cats in tidal rivers, In 2008 it was big crappies and largemouths in ponds. This year, and not neccessarily by design, it is big gills and perch and almost exclusively on live earthworms or crawlers. I actually feel like a little kid again fishing and it's kinda cool!

I've tried Bill Mod's spoon thing acouple of times, with no success. But I am sure that I will come accross the situation where the spoon gig will absolutely smash em, then I'll be a spoonchucker like the rest of the gang! I need to remain open and willing to try new tactics by the members here and break out from my conservative gilling habits. One thing for sure, I don't know anywhere near as much as I should when it comes to big bluegills.

Trying new stuff is always cool and exciting!

[bluegillboogieman]

Well I may have answered my own question. It's not us, it's them. Saturday I was on the water at sunrise and started with a fly rod and rubberlegged spider. I was putting it near big lilypads and within a few minutes, Bam!. He was a beaut. By 10:00 AM I had exactly ZERO more strikes on anything I threw their way. Wet flys, dry flies, beetle spins, tiny spoons, redworms and crickets. Zilch! I caught the only one left in that pond.

I switched ponds. Twice! The second one has a lot of floating muck and it had totally blocked the boat ramp. I have a great pond boat with built in wheels on the rear and can get it in just about anywhere. If I'm not too lazy. I was.

Pond three. I had never fished it before. Not very many cypress trees, just a few lilypads, no bonnet plants, just mostly open pond water. But, the ramp was easy so I put in. Right away I caught a couple. Of Butterbeans! First gills smaller than 8" I had caught at Cypress Cattle Company. Oh No! Then I realized I forgot my umbrella. Went back to the truck and got it. To heck with this side of the pond, I headed for the far side. There they were!. All anout 9 1/2". I was taking them on crickets, (my fav). Decided to experiment and tried all the things I mentioned earlier. No way Jose. It was crickets or nothing. They wouldn't even try my second fav, giant redworms. But they would try crickets, every time till the crickets were gone. So it was either they only wanted crickets, or they liked my umbrella. I liked em both.

[brant smith]

Imo it is entirely up to the fish. And often times the fish don't have a clue either lol. Along with the
traditional baits, I like to mix it up a bit.

[bluegillboogieman]

Thanks for the input Dick. When I was a little boy, I fished in a small stream that ran through our yard. Hook, line and bread dough. No pole, sinker or bobber. I watched them take the bait and snatched 'em up by hand. I probably caught each one of those fish a hundred times. I don't remember them ever turning up their nose. That youthful experience of watching them take the bait probably shaped my lifetime fishing beliefs. I have always assumed that if I wasn't catching any, I was fishing where they weren't. So I moved around till I found them. I recently decided to get one of those finder things and you say you're going to throw yours up on the bank because you can see 'em and they won't bite? My inner child liked it better when I didn't know nuthin. I think that little stream is still there. I wanna go home.