For sheer fishing fun and frenetic action on the water, it’s hard to top an outing for bluegills. Making this fish especially appealing is the fact that they can be caught with all three major types of angling Shenandoah Valley anglers use — live bait fishing, casting lures and fly fishing.
Last week we looked at some productive lures for sunfish. Here are a few more, along with some tips for using live bait and fly fishing.
Spinners. Another top choice for cloudy water or actively-feeding fish is a plain spinner. Some I’ve had good luck with include the Mepps, Blue Fox, Panther Martin, Worden Rooster Tail, and Luhr-Jensen Shyster. Spinners come in all kinds of shapes, sizes and colors. Choose small models and stock a variety of blade colors including silver, gold, black, and fluorescent green or orange for murky water conditions.
Retrieve spinners at a slow, steady pace, reeling just fast enough to get the blade revolving. Strikes are often belligerent with these lures.
Carolina-rigged Plastics. You’ve probably used this setup for bass, but Carolina-style rigging also offers a productive way to catch panfish. Rig a sliding bullet or egg sinker weighing 1/8 to 3/8 ounce ahead of a barrel swivel and bead. Then tie in a leader of 18-36 inches and attach the lure to that. Alternately, you can simply use one large round split shot ahead of the offering.
For the lure, a good choice is a thin plastic worm in the two to four-inch range with pre-rigged hooks, or a single exposed hook. Another option is a small grub, hooked lightly through the head, just 1/8 inch in from the tip, on a size 6 to 10 short-shank bait hook. Having the lure separated from the sinker and fluttering almost weightlessly behind it makes this setup especially appealing to fish on heavily-pressured waters and clear lakes. But be forewarned — you might latch onto an 8-pound bass with this just as likely as an 8-ounce bluegill!
Fly fishing
With their diminutive mouths and preference for feeding on insects, bluegills are a terrific quarry for the fly fisherman. Backwaters in rivers, farm ponds, natural lakes and large impoundments are all potentially good fly fishing locations. A 5-7 weight outfit fits the bill perfectly.
The overwhelming favorite offering among bluegill fly anglers is a sponge rubber spider with white rubber-band legs. Good colors are black, green, red and brown. Also stock a few terrestrial patterns normally used for trout such as ants, crickets, beetles and grasshopper flies. If fish are not eager to feed on top, crimp a split shot a foot or two ahead of a rubber spider so it sinks slowly. You can also tie some patterns with weight on the hook shank. A few wet fly and nymphs such as the Wooly Worm, Hare’s Ear and Pheasant Tail are also good, with sizes 8-14 best.
Try to spot fish in the shallows with polarizing sunglasses. If you can’t locate the actual fish, cast to cover such as stumps, weed edges, and dock pilings. Allow the topwater offerings to rest after casting them for a full 10 to 20 seconds, then give them a slight twitch. Sub-surface patterns such as nymphs and wet flies produce best with 4-8 inch strips or a slow-crawl presentation.
Live bait
Chances are more bluegills are caught by anglers using bait than any other method. There’s little wonder why. Show a panfish a wriggling worm or succulent cricket and a bite is almost guaranteed.
Bait also offers a great way to introduce youngsters and newcomers to angling to this quarry. Light or ultralight spin tackle, a fly rod with a reel spooled with monofilament, or a simple cane pole can all be effective for delivering a tempting morsel. Use the long fly rods or cane poles when you can approach close to the fish and then flip the offering toward the quarry. Otherwise use spin gear and cast from farther out.
A bobber positioned anywhere from 2-5 feet above a size 6-8 bait hook is helpful for suspending the offering. Add a small split shot a foot above the hook. Red wrigglers or garden worms are excellent choices, but crickets may be the best bluegill bait of all. A small piece of a nightcrawler also draws steady action.
It may seem like an old-fashioned fishing tactic in our modern high-tech world, but watching a bobber disappear as a scrappy bluegill races away with your offering is a thrill no angler is too old or too young to enjoy!
Award-winning outdoors writer Gerald Almy is a Maurertown resident
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