Do you love big bluegill?

A couple of Hours at one of my old favorites

Last evening was a beautiful one on the Maryland eastern Shore. With a couple of spare hours I decided a trip to Unicorn Lake was a good idea. Launched the lttle Bass Buggy around 5:30, baited up the microlite with a Chartruese Gulp Alive 1" Minnow and went to work on my favorite shoreline. There seemed to be a few new deadfalls in the water than I remembered. But that's a good thing.

After a few casts with nothing but grass or slime on my rig I got a strike. I wasn't fast enough for this one, but a return cast was met with a vicious hit. The fight was on and after a strong 30-40 second run I boated a spunky 14" Chain Pickeral. Unhooked and unharmed I quickly released this toothy critter to the water.

A few more casts and another hook-up. This time it was an 11" Crappie! I quickly released the speck and went on working the rod. It didn't take long before I was again hooked up with a fish that wanted to run deep and pull drag. On the second sweep it came unbuttoned. I sure would have enjoyed seeing what that one was!

Continuing my quest I was soon into another deep running drag pulling fight. Unlike the one before, this one came into the boat. It was a beautiful 8 1/2" Gill. I rounded out the trip with a few more hammer handle Pike and a couple of additional Crappie. No more Gills. There seemed to be a number of them on their beds and that may have made them a little hesitatnt to strike my bait. I should have dug up a couple of worms and added a little variety to my offerings.

All in all it was a great way to spend a spring evening. There was enough variety of fish. And enough catches to make it interesting. When I got back to the ramp the mosquitos were laying in wait for me, but that just motivated me to work faster.

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Permalink Reply by Jeffrey D. Abney on May 4, 2012 at 1:02pm

Nice testimony Ron....I enjoy the places that I can catch a variety of fish also.....

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Permalink Reply by Ron Young on May 4, 2012 at 1:27pm

Jeffrey,

I hadn't been to Unicorn since February. It's only about 20 minutes from my house. I usually catch 3 or more species of fish there. It was too good an evening not to do something with a rod & reel!