Bluegill - Big Bluegill

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I got up early to day to try out a new spot. We had a lot of rain yesterday, and that tends to mess with my favorite spot, the river. So I went to a park the county maintains. This was my first visit to the site.

At the park is an old mill pond of about 30 acres. At the deepest it is probably not more than 15 feet, and the edges are thick with elodea and various shore growths. This make it pretty tough to access the water around most of the lake. But I soldiered ahead.

At the dam end is a small fishing platform, where I started tossing my patented dog food chum (all right it's not patented - I was joking. It's just moistened dog food).

Within ten minutes, I was pleased to have a surface feeding frenzy going, about 15 feet in front of me. I hadn't caught one at this point, but whatever they were - they were climbing over each other to get to my feed.

Once I figured out that slip floating and micro jigs wouldn't catch them, this is what they turned out to be:

 

 

Shiners, roach (Britain), chub...whatever you call them, musta' been a whole school of the things, I reckon. I've never seen them in any of the waters around here. They went 6"-10".

Plain #14 hook, 3 lb test line on Gulp! Natural Maggots, no weight. They would not take a worm or cricket.

 

I also caugth this guy:

A chunky bullhead. His pattern was reminiscent of the new digital camo seen on US military BDU's. Up close it was really interesting. He was caught on a gob of redworm, beneath one of my home made slip floats. It was in about 4 feet of water, #6 hook on 6  lb test line.

I was also chumming in this spot.

 

Along with these were some small basslings and bluegill, but nothing to speak of. As I was leaving, I noticed some disturbance in the water bear the dam. At my approach, I spotted two large 'somethings' lolling around in the water. When they saw me, they rolled in a flash of brown and disappeared. My guess is they were some decent sized carp. Time to break out the sweet corn!

 

Hope you hooked  a few!

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Thanks john. This is pretty old, and popped up in a completely random web search for something else!
But the mention of Gulp maggots on a foam or chenille bug is a good one....
Sounds like a fun outing...reading about fishing helps a little with this cabin fever we are experiencing here in the north.

Like that bullhead

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