April 2012 Blog Posts (27)

With hunting season a vague memory,  they openned the private lake for fishing.  I was there early , it was cool and cloudy and we had the place to ourselves.  Cindy, my wife,was, as always anticipating our usual luck at this spot. (80 acre lake and we rarely , if ever,  fish anywhere but this one spot on the boat dock.  Here's why.)  If you could fill 2 five gallon buckets…

Seems to me this idea has been done here before but I searched "Unusual Catches' and it came up empty .I'll post one now and more another time. I would like to see what folks think of as an "Unusual Catch " and see the diversity of photos of their fishing events. This Fish hit a huge spoon and was caught in the mouth . Is it an "Unusual Catch " ? I think so. Unusually Aggressive!…

  a guy on lake-link the other day commented that schools of fish always travel in counter-clockwise rotation, and that when the bite stops you should move down to shoreline/or docks to the left?  any thoughts??

Daffin's Lake - In the Beginning

Follow me on my journey to raise and catch a 2+ lb coppernose bluegill.

This is Daffin's Lake.  A natural, ~6 acre, rain fed depression in the panhandle of Florida inhabited by bluegill, large mouth bass, warmouth and the occasional alligator.  

Normal water levels would…

Caught this dink  today,4/22/12 in a very shallow stream (Ringwood Brook) Took a small worm on a #10 hook. Apparently New Jersey does have Redears but I never caught one before .What do ya think Red Ear (gotta admit it looks like one ) or Pumpkinseed?

Redear sunfish (Lepomis microlophus) can grow to 10 inches, and have a long pointed…

http://bigbluegill.com/forum/topics/bank-spots?groupUrl=bank-busters&groupId=2036984%3AGroup%3A198982&id=2036984%3ATopic%3A213461&page=2#comments

Tuesday I hit the private lake again to find gills and seeds nesting. The lure I stuck with was a 4cm hot mustard muddler Rapala X-Rap.

While doing a slashbait retrieve with a few pauses and twitches, those bulls and pumpkinseeds were going crazy! The seeds were the ones being the most aggressive. Caught a total of 4 bulls, 3 seeds, and 1 yellow perch.

Also threw a 1/16 ounce white maribu right in front of many. Bluegills weren't too interested but those…

I'm sure most of us have fished at least one good sized creek where you never have any idea at all what you are going to catch. My example would be an Ohio River tributary in southern Indiana, where, from mid May to late October, you can catch, get ready, White Crappie, Black Crappie, Sauger, Saugeye, Blue Catfish, Channel Catfish, Flathead Catfish, (some white catfish maybe), white bass, Spotted Bass, Largemouth Bass, Smallmouth Bass, Bluegill, Warmouth, Rock Bass, Green Sunfish, Longear…

Sunday afternoon and evening a buddy and I hit a CT lake up his way.

What was working for me was that same 7cm firetiger Original Floater. I was carefully twitching the lure on the surface with occasional 3 second pauses. Plenty of swirls, love taps, and jumps. Caught a total of 4 pumpkinseeds, 2 bluegills, and 5 calicos.

Brought 3 calicos home and found 2 of them to be pregnant.

Can anyone ID these little dudes? I bought them as coppernose a few weeks ago to stock my new pond, and was wondering if they are the real deal. thanks for your help!

Here's a link to a well thought out set of association pond guidelines, that help enhance bluegill  populations.

http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=287893#Post287893

i got a pond that is three years old and i got coppernose bg and hybrid bg, i want to get them big. What food should i use?? i got floating fish food now but i think that is taking longer then i want, i heard that corn and wheat works good but i dont know, What do u guys think?

Going bass fishing tomorrow in illinois. Any tips are welcome if available.

April 12, 2012

    Well... I finally got around to starting the restoration on the old cane fly-rod my neighbor gave me. It is a Montague Rapidian model. It was originally nine feet in length but it looks like it has a couple inches missing from the tip. The Montague Rod Company was a very prolific manufacturer in the…

Wednesday I hit the private lake that caught me the PB 14 ounce bluegill.

I hit the same area that produced for me last time and had bullgills hitting a 7cm firetiger Rapala Original Floater. All were around 9" and weighed 12 and 13 ounces.

2 took the entire rear treble and all were hard fighters.

Total was 5 with 3 being pregnant females.

Tuesday I hit a small pond that is part of the brook that feeds the other 2 ponds I've been reporting about.

I saw many yellow perch cruising the shore and caught 1 with a 1/16oz white maribu. Others would just stare at it and then leave.

I switched over to a 2" double rigged soft plastic trout worm. That had the gills going! Worked the worm slowly just under the surface with a gliding walk the dog motion. Bluegills were chasing it and would hit it a lot, but…

  I 've read that like Male Bluegills,Male Pumpkinseeds are brighter more varied color than the Females.I am curious if any one knows if their Opercular size and shape are much different.The Male Bluegill sports a noticebly bigger ,wider and longer Gill flap but does this hold true for Pseeds as well? I'm thinking so but am not sure .

This link states breeding female exhibit more prominent dark, vertical bands;…

We were fishing bluffs with short shelves about 6 ft. deep on the main channels next to deep water . The temp. was 66 i think im not sure i didn't have alot of time to take alot of notes . We were using crickets and black and yellow grubs on beetlespins . The bigger fish seem to be just over the ledge of the shelves . The CRACKERS came from sand bars out in the middle close to stake beds . I'm ready to go back now ! Brother -n-law says its not even got good yet , man i hope he's right .…

What a day ! Kentucky lake is great ! My first day on ky. lake and im cleaning 43 fish . The gills are monsters and my personal favorite the CRACKERS are wonderful and huge . The crappie arent bad either . My brother-n-law and father-n-law and myself got to the lake around 11am and left at 4 and had non stop pole bending action!!!! My poor wife , i know im gonna be at the brother-n-laws house more than my own now . I'm gonna have to invest in a camper at the lake of course !