Do you love big bluegill?

My "home lake"

I am avoiding names in the description even though it will be really easy to figure out. This blog is about my panfishing quest and I don't want to get sidetracked or hijacked into a long discussion about it here. Be happy to elsewhere and often do.

It's a medium sized lake - about 4000 acres - in the NC Piedmont. Max depth is about 40' or so and it is shaped like a fat check mark with the main channel in the long side. Lots of rocky bottom, some drowned timber, some shallow side coves and some deep ones, lots of rocky points and a few road beds across it. It isn't technically a cooling lake, but on the smaller arm there is a cooling lake on the other side of a dam. No one is allowed up that arm close to the inflow so there is no hot hole fishing. And while it may not technically be a cooling lake, I have never seen it freeze even when other nearby larger lakes had ice.

It may or may not be the best bass lake in the state depending on who you talk to. At one time it held the record for a 5 fish weigh in and may still. I don't think it is the best crappie fishing lake in the state, but it is in that conversation. A conversation it is in a lot lately is about white perch. It has far too many. The regs have changed and you can now net white perch and keep all you want. But there are some nice white perch caught and they are exciting to fish for in late summer when they blitz even if they are mostly small. It's also full of channel cats and has given up a few big flatheads.

It isn't widely known as a bluegill lake though they are certainly there in good numbers. I have caught a lot of them in the shallows, beating the banks with a beetle spin or similar.

A lot of fish are caught there deep jigging, something I will do more of this year. I just recently picked up a fish finder to be able to stay on top of the bait balls better. I was not fishing totally blind before; kayakers usually fish in groups and share information. But sometimes we didn't have one and sometimes the bait balls are tight. I needed my own to up my game in this lake and I have one now.

I don't think that means the banks are to be ignored totally, but I think I will primarily be fishing deep.

I will be headed there is a couple of days; a planning entry will be upcoming in a bit and hopefully in a couple of days a report on success...