Summer Gill'n

The predawn fishing was a little slow for the gills this morning but the small bass were biting pretty good. Once it started getting light the gills started biting. Caught some solid fish this morning and a nice double. The first picture may be the best fish so far this summer. A telltale sign of a big gill is their Frankenstein foreheads. Big gills will start becoming more square shaped as they approach the pound and a half - two pound range. The fish really started keying in on a dragon fly hatch later in the morning. Didn't have any dragon fly nymphs, but they didn't have any problem eating a damsel fly pattern.





Summer Gill'n

Today was kinda a slow day. I went to a creek that use to be a honey hole of mine. It had some nice gravel substrate that the gills would load up and spawn on. The flooding from last spring/summer or this spring has washed it all out, so now it is just limestone bedrock and void of spawning fish. Still caught a few fish and had a good time. Got a few decent underwater shots.

Summer Gill'n

Lots of fish still on the beds but they weren't very aggressive and only a few would eat. I backed off the beds and fished the deeper areas adjacent to the beds and that proved to be effective. Ended up with several nice fish. I switched over to a hopper and watched that get crushed by several fish. Its always fun seeing the blue throats of these fish slowly rise to a surface pattern. The terrestrial fishing should only get better as we get into late July and August.  

Summer Gill'n

Was worried about how the fishing would turn out today. We had quite a bit of rain and storms last night and all morning. Early afternoon it cleared off and the sun started peaking through the clouds. I was able to get about an hour, hour and half of fishing in. The fishing wasn't bad at all. No monsters caught but some very solid fish that put up a great fight. I really liked the coloring of the fish in the last picture; gorgeous fish.

Summer Gill'n

Every Friday this summer I plan to go chase some bluegills and sunfish and post up about the fishing. I have a feeling some of the pictures and Friday trips will become a little bit redundant as there are only so many ways  to post about a quick trip to a local pond and there is not a lot of variation between bluegills in regards to size or quality of fish. But they are a fun fish on light fly gear and are almost always willing to put a bend in your rod. What they lack in size they make up for in heart and always put up a good fight. 

So today's trip started in the predawn hours with a near full moon still shining. The fishing was steady, nothing to fast and furious. Bringing a few fish to hand always makes being sleep deprived a little more manageable. Bluegill always move up onto beds during the full moon cycle of the summer months. I continued fishing for an hour or so after the sun was up and brought a few more fish to hand. This particular pond I was fishing has a really good population of gills but for some reason the bass are just really malnourished. 

      

Gulp

5-17-15

With the rains last night that continued into the early morning the top water bass bite was good this afternoon. Caught a lot of fish on a Cohens frog leg diver. The water was a little stained so the chartreuse belly seemed to produce a little better than the white belly frog. The fish where right where you'd expect to find them along the edges and among the newly flooded vegetation. The fish weren't to overly aggressive and seemed to prefer a slower presentation with a lot of longer pauses between strips. Non the less when they decided to come up they smashed the fly. No real big fish today but lots of nice fish to a few pounds. You know how some people are dry fly purist when it comes to trout fishing, its easy to become the same why with bass and poppers. Catching bass on subsurface flies just isn't as exciting as seeing them blowup on popper. It may be the only way to fish for them in some circles.

Working on his back flips.

Just missed the money shot.

Gill rattling jump.

Cohens frog leg diver. 

   

Monday Movie; Bass

Here is a video I did several years ago during the spawn. Basically just set the camera down on a small tripod next to a bed that was being aggressively guarded by a male largemouth. Bass love eating bluegill and absolutely hate them in the spring spring during the spawn. The EP bluegill is my number one fly for fish on beds.