Limit gills

[J. Winters]

Hello Everybody,

It's my first time posting, but not my first time catching gills....well, I'm here in southern California(not San Diego) and I have to say, I'm catching record amounts of blues...check it out....I live near a semi small lake where trout is stocked for the winter, I was interested in catching a few rainbows, but to my great shock all the older folks from out of town were catching a hell of a lot of bluegill...and ALL were keepers. So I quickly set one rod for Rainbows and the other one rigged up classic-style(bottom weight and hook and line a foot above that) anyway I was quickly getting bites with bits of nightcrawler. The lady next to me was catching them way quicker than me, and so was everybody else...I just wasn't attentive to one rod. In other words, I really wasn't holding the rod to set the hook...Anyway, I went home with 9 good bluegill...the last one was given to me by a gentleman by the name of Earl(as he had more than enough gills)

So this past weekend comes around, and I'm hoping that the fishing is as good as Thanksgiving weekend...IT WAS!! I set both my poles for bluegill and I went home with 20 bluegill and one crappie. I caught these in about 3-4 feet of water with sandy/semi-mucky bottom with stained-colored water. I don't know about the temperature, but I think it was mid 50s. I let a few go, so in all I probably caught about 24 bluegill....1 short of the limit. Everybody that was there was catching tons of them. Again, all were great size. Some kids a few yards away from me caught more than ten for sure. Earl told me that the meal worms worked even better than the nightcrawlers...but I love night crawlers...anyhow, I'll be fishing this weekend(hopefully) and trying out my own version of the FISH-N-SPIN. (1/32 jig head red and chartreuse body and small chrome spinner...ANYBODY EVER FISH THESE???????

Well, gotta go...I hope you all keep bringing these beautiful fish in...enjoy.....(Today, I'll be enjoying them fish-n-chips style with a bit of tartar sauce...oh yea!)

[J. Winters]

OH!!!! I meant that it used to be about 30 crappie for past years.

[J. Winters]

These are about 7 and1/2 inches +....they're looking nice and healthy...some others were a bit bigger...I sure do selective fishing...I'm all about conservation of any kind of fish, bird, or mammal....not sure if everybody out on the lake shares my thoughts, but I hope they do know that a limit is a limit for a reason....just this year was the first time that I know of that bluegill and crappie fall in the same category(sunfish) for catch limits...for instance, I can take 15 bluegill and 10 crappie...and nothing more...no size limit or anything, but I don't take anything that I don't feel is good to take home.  It used to be an unlimited amount of bluetill and, if I remember correctly, about 30 bluegill for 2009 and every other year prior to last.

[Jim Gronaw]

How big are these fish? Does everybody keep 25 apiece? Perhaps selective harvest practices could help maintain this fishery.

 

Nice fish, great catch!

[John Sheehan]

Hey J. Nice post .Yeah mealworms and Crawler pieces on the end of small spoons and small jigs as well as plain hook are the tool for me to catch a mess of Gills.