Do you love big bluegill?

bluegill flies or jigs.

IF YOU COULD CARRY ONLY 5 FLIES OR JIGS FOR CRAPPIE OR BLUEGILL, WHAT WOULD THEY BE? I AM NEW TO THE SPIN FLY WAY OF FISHING AND WOULD LIKE TO START TYING MY OWN FLIES AND JIGS,

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Bob Davis on July 13, 2010 at 8:52am

First let me welcome you to the BBsite. Lots of knowledge about hunting our favorite fish the Slab Blue Gill. I've been tying my own rigs for gills for more years then I can remember but each year I find new ideas on that approach and many of them come from this site. Now to answer your question about which 5 rigs I'd use: #1 on my list would be a Lady Amherst Gimp fly in a black or redish brown. They are deadly on gills. #2 would be a 1/32 oz. lead jig in a yellow, chartreuse, or lime green tipped with a small piece of plastic and a couple of spikes, #3 would be a #10 aberdeen hook dressed with a multitude of different wraps and tinsels trailing a spinner blade tipped with a leaf worm and drifted through suspended gills. #4 would be a #3 or 4 swedish pimple in a pink or chartreuse with the single hook replacing the treble and spikes or waxworms. #5 would be a black or red ant with hackle tipped with a spike (or not) in shallow water for bedding gills on a torpedo cork. This should give you a few ideas. Right in the heat of summer the gills are deep and many of the fly options have to be weighted down and drifted with a 2-3 foot lead. Gills love them! Good luck fishing! Sincerely, Bob

Permalink Reply by HughScott on July 14, 2010 at 10:48am

THANKS BOB, MUCH APPRECIATE IT. IS THERE A U-TUBE SITE OR SIMILAR SITE ABOUT TYING THE LADY AMHERST GIMP FLY? ANY SUCH ITES WOULD BE HELPFUL. TYING FLIES AND JIGS HAS BEEN GREAT FUN SO FAR. BEEN USING U-TUBE TUTORIALS SO FAR. AGAIN THANKS..... SCOTTY

Permalink Reply by Keith Owen on July 13, 2010 at 10:48am

Hey Hugh, welcome.

I have a couple of go-to flies I like to keep my boxes stocked with. Some of them are easy to tie or get at a local fly shop, others are ones I have come up with myself. Since there is "nothing new under the sun" even the ones I sort of invented are based on flies I have seen other tiers do, so a close match could be found if you don't tie flies yourself.

My number one fly is a simple Bead-head Wooly Bugger tied with some flash and sparkle. I put them together in black, brown and rust color but tend to use olive the most.

Number two would be an olive Creeper Fly. I tie these in mostly olive with yellow dumb-bell eyes. I use cheap spinnerbait skirts for the legs and bend the hook eye up a tad to get a better "hop" on the retrieve. I got the idea from some of the great stuff Dave Whittlock has done.

Number three would be a little Marabou Crayfish. I came up with this fly after fishing shrip patterns in the Gulf. I originally tied it for catching Smallmouth in the streams of Eastern Oklahoma but found I was catching just as many big Sunfish as bass and started using it in lakes and ponds with good success. The rust color matches the crawdads in our streams but dark brown and purple work well in deeper water.

Number four is a fly that is tied to work like a twist-tailed grub on a jig head. They work good in lots of colors. I like yellow and black. I tie them over lead wire so the sink flatish instead of doing a nose dive. I don't have a snazzy name for this one. Yet.

Number five is a little unorthadox I suppose. I use heavy stonefly imitations for trout in many places I fish. I was Bluegill fishing one day and had grabbed the wrong box on the way out. I put on one of my heavily weighted, dark stonefly patterns and caught lots of fish. The one I tie now is pretty big, and pretty heavy. Some what of a chuck and duck fly. It's a big fly that catches big fish. They may be few and far between, but worth the time invested. It's a big chunk, so I tend to fish it on a little heavier flyrod. Like a stout six weight.

Jump over to my page. I have some pictures of these flies posted there.

Bluegill, especially big Bluegill can be picky. I have read that they are actually more descriminating feeders than trout. I try really hard to keep my hands clean and not get weird smells on my flies. Any fly you might use can be effective if it has three qualities. It needs to look "buggy", it has to be at the right spot in the water column (where the fish are feeding), and it has to have a "trigger quality" (wiggely legs, fluttering feathers or twisty tails).

Good luck with your fishing.

Permalink Reply by HughScott on July 14, 2010 at 10:55am

THANKS KEITH. I WILL JUMP OVER TO YOUR SITE AND TAKE A LOOK AT YOUR PATTERNS. ANY RECCOMENDATIONS ON U-TUBE TUTORIAL SITES FOR JIG TYING AND FLY TYING. THANKS AGAIN FOR THE INFO... SCOTTY

Permalink Reply by Keith Owen on July 14, 2010 at 3:39pm

Hey Scotty-

Not sure about U-Tube but a search for anything that Larry Dahlberg or Dave Whittlock might have done would be great. I have an old VHS tape of Dahlberg tying several patterns for bass and panfish. I know he has quite a bit of stuff out there on "hard bait" type lure making.

A Google search will come up with thousands of hits if you use a search like "panfish fly patterns" or "bluegill fly patterns". There are a good number of guys with great patterns here on the Big Bluegill site too.

Are you set-up to start tying yet or just now starting down that road? Of those five patterns I posted pictures of, the Wooley Bugger and the Twisty Tail are the simplest and good flies to try as a start. They both go together pretty much the same.

Let me know if you need a little coaching to get started. The quickest way to learn to tie flies is to just tie flies. If you don't like the way they look or something goes sideways just trim everything off and start over.

Watch it though, doing up your own flies can be addictive!

Permalink Reply by HughScott on July 15, 2010 at 12:58pm

KEITY\H, THANKS AGAIN. I HAVE STARTED TYING WITH SOME EQUIPMENT AN ELDERLY GENTLEMAN HAD GIVEN ME YEARS AGO TO TIE CRAPPIE JIGS. ITS BEEN ON THE SHELF IN THE GARAGE FOR YEARS. KNOW WHAT YOU MEAN ABOUT BEING ADDICTIVE. ITS HARD TO DECIDE WHAT TO TIE NEXT. I'M DOING JIGS AND FLIES. SAW SOME GREAT POPPERS USING EARPLUGS. WILL KEEP YOU POSTED. AGAIN THANKS, SCOTTY

Permalink Reply by Bill Purmort on December 26, 2012 at 12:28pm