Locating Quality Gills in a Lake Setting......

[Jeffrey D. Abney]

 Folks have been taking advantage of information sharing on this site since it's inception.....I personally approach bluegill fishing like I can learn something from every member on this site...That's 3200 pieces of information that I can employ in my pursuit of the different Sunfish species.......Many things are important to me but I protect my family and my Bluegill fishing with a passion........I feel that three things make me a successful bluegill angler almost year round as I work to conquer cold water gills in the South.........Effort, Patience and a little fishing luck serve me well year round.......I catch consistent numbers of gills from March through November in the Carolinas with the challenge of finding fish in December and January keeping me sharp.....But this blog is more about the challenge of finding quality gills on the vast lakes and reservoirs of this great nation.......My experience on the nation's lakes is limited to the Southern states of Louisiana, Tennessee and the Carolinas......Many of our lakes are beautiful and very large......The size can be overwhelming to the angler searching for the cooperative species of his or her choice.....My parents moved to Toledo Bend reservoir in the 80s and I still remember the first time I drove to Florein, Louisiana and started seeing little sections of the lake 70 miles from my destination on the shores....I picked up a flyer and it said 1200 miles of shoreline await you on this gem on the Texas/Louisiana line......I asked my dad where do we start?.....Bluegill adrenaline worked against us in the early days as we kept pushing around the next bend........Never being patient and trusting our instincts and fishing an area thoroughly.....One example I'll share is we had always left our little cove behind the house for the big water until one year a severe drought exposed a point and when we took a walk we counted over 500 beds right under our nose and we had never even casted a line in this corner....Water came back in and we caught great fish and numbers right in the backyard......We had to learn and pay attention to our surroundings.......Gills want to naturally go shallow and away from heavy boat traffic in most cases.......I prefer areas with hardwood trees on the bank because this will indicate more sand and clay mix than mud.......In my opinion, most colonies will establish in the same general areas so when the fish are found, check those regions year after year....They won't always be there but many times the fish will be in the same area......Cover is good but Big gills will nest right out on sand bars....so it isn't necessarily a must this time of year......Little fish can be discouraging but catching something is always a better sign than none....I move quickly if I don't get a take rather quickly this time of year.....Lots of little fish and I'll tune my bait or change depths in the areas producing fish to search for the bigger gills........Toledo Bend has water up to 100 feet deep where as Lake Moultrie is not as deep......Moultrie has vast flats which meant I had to cover more water to locate gills........I'll continue to add more insight and feel free to help us out with your advice on lake fishing.......Many members can benefit from our advice and experience.....

[Leo Nguyen]

Excellent suggestion there Jeffrey. Great load of evaluated observation for the effective catches. Unfortunately, our local waters get over pressured daily, and the catches are getting less and less in quality. The trend is the same as Tony pointed out. One get hauled out of the bed, another takes the last one's bed. Same spot throughout the seasons. The best ones are the beds that located far away from shorelines that get easily accessed. However, the pressure by boaters are just as bad as the shorelines, minus all the cursing and screaming from the surrounding anglers.

 

The trick is to find open sandy bottom, somewhere near structures, between 10 to 15ft deep. If the weedlines offer dropoff zones between 10 to 15ft, you got the golden zone. Panfish boat hunters roam this zone all around the lake, much more quickly than floaters, kayakers, and pontooners. We get the left over.

[Tony Livingston]

Lots of good advice in Jeffrey's post. I second the notion of moving quickly this time of year when there's little action. Certainly it's OK to stay in one spot and change up your baits, or presentation, but I try not to get hung up on the notion that the big fish HAVE to be in one particular area. Like jeffrey says, I see BG using the same spots year after year during spawning, but conditions dictate where the fish will be more so than the calendar.

I try to pay close attention to the water temp.