The boatless angler, advice?

[Smoltz]

I'm a bank fisherman.... for now.
Trying to get into the gills
We are having terrible weather. Cool and rain. Most nights are around 48-55.
Day time high topping 65-75 degrees and cloudy. Lost of rain we have had this same weather for about a month now with no change. Crappie spawn got screwed up for us here too.
Water temps keep bouncing around from low 60's to 68. Other day I talked to guy on boat fishing for green carp(bass) n he said it was back down to 66.
I'm not having very good luck. Maybe I need a boat, or maybe I'm not fishing the right areas from the shore. The weather is not helping.
I'm finding very few fish in near shore and no spawning yet. Pennsylvania

Just having trouble getting on fish.
Any advice for me?

[Smoltz]

John,
Most the gills I have been getting are 6-7 " and smaller. Few over 7". I only got 1 bluegill 8 inches.

I have never got one over 8" or so. Usually when I get one close to 8" that a nice one for me. I honestly almost never hear of guys getting ones close to 9" I'm sure some get some big ones occasionally. But I don't see or hear.

[John Sheehan]

What kind of waters do you get the chance to fish ? My community lake used to produce more 8-8.5" than I 've seen in the past two years . Excessive Weed killing is the culprit I suspect.

[Smoltz]

It's all public lakes. Most are pretty large I assume.
The smallest I fish is around 125 acres. And the one i been fishing a good bit is just under 500. One is 1,600 acres. And the other is even larger yet. I have never seen a difference in size of fish to lake size around here. Biggest bluegills I seen caught consistently was deep creek Maryland through the ice. Much different class fish than I ever seen around here.
I read allot of biologists reports on lakes here and 6-7" is definitely the norm with occasional lake with fish over 8". But there is not many in numbers on the reports.

Yeah I don't know what other guys fish. But I hear allot of guys on here fishing private ponds. That's kinda like hunting on preserves. They are going to get big fish easily.