Fishing around lillypads...

[Jerry Graham]

I am a newbie and thanks to all for this great site.

I fish a very small lake for Bluegills and Shellcrackers and the shallow end has a covering of lillypads. I have caught some very nice gills up to 9" here. This is my first year to target gills, so i was wondering what is the best way to fish the lillypads. So far, all i do is throw up close and wait for a nice gill or shellcracker with an attitude to come along....lol

I am using an ultra light with a worm under the bobber. The water depth is only about 3 ft and i am fishing about 18" sometimes 2 ft deep

Anyone care to suggest ways to fish those pads.

[Jeremy R. Mayo]

Dog days of summer is my fav time to fish for gills. With honey dues increasing and other hobbies consuming most of my time my fishing this year has been limited to once a week or less for only an hour or to. Lillies I found are the most productive fishing in august. My best advice for fishing the lillies is to pull the trollin motor up and find a good push pole. Its gonna take a lil bit of patience...... Well a whole lot of patience to learn the amount of self control it takes to move a boat around in lillies to be killa in them. Be slow and stalk the fish like a lion after a herd of prey. Once you find your lillies ease into them be patient and use a cane or fiberglass jiggin pole to jig your way threw. My fav is to take massive amounts of crickets with me. Most of the time I take at least 300. I get in the pads and settle down and start jiggin with canepoles. Find any open hole and set her in. I like using at least 2 poles. Once everything is calm and settled. I get me a handfull of crickets and give a good toss like throwin fertilizzer. Give it a min or so. Gills if there there are gonna start showin themselfs. Push as close as you can but still be as far as you can and be able to make good cast without any disruption to the water. HANG ON!!! Enjoy the show. Everywhere they hit ..... Throw in rite behind. Hope this works as good for you as it does for me. . 50 keeper size gills in a few sets of lillies is an easy task within just a couple hours if you get it rite......... PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT!

[Jerry Graham]

Thanks Jeremy, that sound like alot of fun. I will have to get my feet wet and give it a try. And Dick I appreciate your input. You covered somthing i had thought about and that is once hooked how do I keep from getting tangled in the pads. I have never used a fly rod, however I am going fishing with my brother-in-law in a couple of weeks and he is going to give me a lesson in fly fishing. Wish me luck:)

[Jim G]

I have used Dick's method many times with a fly rod. I use a frugal frog type popper, letting the popper land on the pads and slowly pulling it off if the gills are there you don't have to wait long. Be prepared though I have caught as many nice bass using the same method.

[jeffery gibson]

you tlakin about the frog popper on a fly rod i have had them eat the popper through the lilly pad

[John Cachel]

Find out how deep is at the edge of lily pads and if its 8 feet deep then set up a slip bobber down 7 feet and your bait would be 1 feet off the bottom. Big bluegills near bottom at the edge of lily pads! Also try a long pole and tip your bait down into a small hole of lily pads! Other way is to fish section of lily pads that is closest to the deep water. It hold some big fish! I like to look for some weeds mixed with lily pads that would be good! Log, lily pads, some weeds and good depth all in one spot would be super spot. If you can find it then keep it yourself sercet spot! Hot spot! 6 lbs test line would be better that you able to pull big bluegill out of the heavy lily pads!