Anyone want to teach in Houston, TX?

[Neil Aggarwal]

Hello:

I want to learn to catch bluegill.
I live at the SW corner of the 610 loop.
I have a fishing license, rod and reel, and have experience saltwater fishing but not freshwater.

Anyone willing to teach?

Thanks,
Neil

[Dan Gwaltney]

Sure! I-10 exit 166 in Florida. Come on over! ;-) Seriously, I'd be game for that if you were. Might want to give me a heads up on here and get the rest of the directions, like the part that says, "After you leave the paved road..."

Assuming you have a fairly lightweight rod with 10 lb or less line, just slip on a bobber of some kind..smaller the better.. tie on a small hook with a small split-shot 3 or more inches above it. Hang a live cricket on the hook and throw it in the water. Now that's pretty basic, but if you toss that thing near a dock, a stump, or any other kind of structure, one of 3 things will happen: 1. Nothing. In that case, throw it somewhere else. 2. You'll get hung on something and break your line. In that case, tie on a new rig and try not to throw it in the same place again. 3. You'll catch a Bluegill or one of his cousins and you'll be just as hooked as he was! You will start to refine your own techniques pretty quickly, and the water you fish will have quite a bearing on that. My primary water is Lake Talquin, the shoreline of which is pretty much lined with houses and docks. The people there feed the fish from the docks and that's where they congregate. I rarely catch anything in the few "undeveloped" stretches of shoreline, but frequently catch nice fish in as little as 1 foot of water around those docks. Fishing depth can be critical, but you have to find it for yourself. Basically, a good rule of thumb is to place your bobber(we call'em cork stoppers around here) so that the bait is close to the bottom but not quite touching the bottom. If you have the right amount of weight on it, your cork stopper will float a bit more vertical rather than horizontal. If it lays flat, your bait is on the bottom and you may not see the bite.

Fishing in moving water, such as a creek or river is the same, only different. There, I like to lay my bait out just a bit upstream from a structure and let it drift into the target zone. It can be tough to find the right depth to fish like that though, so take plenty of spare hooks and stuff. You'll get hung up a lot more in that kind of water, but the rewards can be great.

I don't know what sort of salt water experience you have. Bluegill fishing is nothing at all like Marlin or Tarpon fishing, but it ain't all that different from Trout or Redfish.;-)

There are different techniques for different types of water. I used to fish that same lake before all of those houses and docks were there, and before they sold fish food in the feed stores, and it was a whole different ball game. Back then, we would go out to the stumps and sunken logs near the old river channel, but that was 40+ years ago and most of that structure is gone now.

[Neil Aggarwal]

Unfortunately, Florida is a little bit out of the way for me right now.
Thanks for all the helpful advice. I think I will have to go out and try it.
My saltwater fishing is trout and redfish so it seems like most of it will carry over.

Thanks!

[10.5" RES Sharon]

Very helpful Dan. I learn something new every day.