Do you love big bluegill?

2 lb. 2 oz. Neb. Gill

Bull Bluegill though the ice in Nebraska

Rating:

View Full Size

Tags:

Comment

Comment by Tim Overbaugh on December 30, 2011 at 9:28am: Indeed, this fish was full of fat and was eating what appeared to be dragonfly larve. It was a long bug in a tube-like encasement. It's stomach was full of these.

Obviously it's a male but while dissecting (I take notes of all my specimens) its male organs looked odd, they didn't look developed like other specimens I've examined. Not sure if this was a defect or not as I'm not an expert this matter, it's just my observation.

I do feel compassion for harvesting such a giant gill, as I think most do, but thats our God giving right. This fish like others that have been molded will live though time with the memory preserved as reproductions.

This 12-inch 2.2 lb Male Bluegill was molded, then skinned and cleaned, The fillets were unbelievably delicious and a taxidermy mount was made from the skin. Plus, my tabby cat loved eating the scrapes that were left over.

Now you know the rest of the story. Good day!

Comment by Walt Foreman on December 29, 2011 at 10:47pm: I hadn't even noticed, but I do now that you mention it. Definitely some spectacular genes in that fish.

Comment by Bruce Condello on December 29, 2011 at 9:57pm: Keep in mind...the eye of the fish is so small in proportion. That means the fish grew rapidly from the get-go.. Unreal.

Comment by Walt Foreman on December 29, 2011 at 8:53pm: That has got to be one of the most memorable photos of a giant bluegill that I've ever seen. I can't get over it. A big part of it, of course, is the fish itself - what an awesome bruiser 'gill...

Comment by Tim Overbaugh on December 29, 2011 at 8:46pm: Or........ you can have the best of both worlds by doing what I did in this Bluegill picture and take a picture of a film print with your digital camera.

Comment by Walt Foreman on December 29, 2011 at 3:24pm: You can do all of that with film if you have your own darkroom - it just takes a lot more time and money. You can make any number of different versions, with much more latitude for change of exposure/color/size etc., than with digital, without the concomitant loss of quality that results when digital images are altered (for instance, blowing up a film print as opposed to blowing up a digital image - no comparison in resolution quality); and you still have the original negative to go back to. It's many times slower, more expensive, and more labor-intensive, though, which is why film is dying (or has already died one could say) a rapid death.

Comment by Walt Foreman on December 29, 2011 at 1:11pm: I prefer Kodak film, like the natural look. I would totally shoot on film still if it weren't so much more expensive, and so much more trouble to get developed. I'd have to mail the film to Nashville every time I shot a roll - not a lot of places these days that even deal with film.

Comment by JBplusThuy on December 29, 2011 at 10:18am: Walt, I enjoyed shooting on film, too, and was kind of partial to the great blue and green saturation of Fuji for outdoors shots. Still, I don't think I'd trade the DSLR I have today for either the K1000 or the ME Super I used to have back in the eighties. I'll say, though, that I really enjoyed the full manual K1000, even though the ME Super with a power winder was a lot more convenient. A fully manual DSLR with nothing but a viewfinder would be an interesting beast :-)

Comment by Tim Overbaugh on December 28, 2011 at 7:35pm: You know I can't indulge that sort of information Jim. lol There would be heck to pay since I didn't catch it.

I heard that this Pelican Lake you mentioned dried up some years ago. I'm pretty sure that was another one of the lakes we fished when we were down there.