Do you love big bluegill?

HELLO

Hey guys! just wanted to introduce myself and ask a couple of questions. I have been fly fishing for bluegill for the past year or so, and am absolutely addicted! I do most of my fishing wading in small, brushy streams, working really hard for really small fish, but i enjoy the casting challenge, and the scrappy reward when all things come together! For the past few months I've also really gotten into float tubing for gills, THE MOST FUN YOU'LL EVER HAVE FISHING in my humble opinion! Although I enjoy catching small panfish on the fly, I never catch real numbers or size enough for a decent fish fry except for spring and early summer. So now I want to branch out and "go back to my roots" so to speak, and start doing some serious spin fishing in an attempt to get into bigger and more bluegill. So here's my questions:

1. From my childhood, the only way I remember catching large bluegills was live worms from my grandfathers worm box, but that was only on his 2-acre pond where really only family fished so the bluegills really were able to pack on the weight. In y'alls opinion, are regular old garden worms the best way to start back onto the road to bigger 'gills on rivers and larger bodies of water or is there a better live bait, or do i need to start learning lures?

2. I took the float tube out today, and absolutely froze my butt off(almost literally lol) and didn't so much as get a bite on anything from foam bugs, to streamers. to wollybuggers, to size 20 nymphs!(which is kinda what led me to surf the internet for info, which is what led me to this awesome site!) do any of you guys do the float tube thing? If so what tips do you have for spin fishing for gills from a tube?

3. In fall-winter, is live bait still the way to go?

Thanks in advance, and sorry for the lengthy post!

-Scott

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Permalink Reply by Leo Nguyen on October 31, 2012 at 3:36pm

Jonathan, quite aromatic..very very aromatic indeed.

They don't sell them here in CA. You have to order from the east coast.

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Permalink Reply by Scott on October 31, 2012 at 9:12am

Ok cool. Thanks again guys! Making a worm farm sounds like a cool idea. Have to wait til I have more time on my hands though. I think for now the styrofoam cooler set up will be the way to go. Ill just load up at the bait shop a couple of days before I go. Thanks again, ill let you know how it goes!