Fishing for bluegill is about as simple as it gets. They’re incredibly common all over North America, from Canada to Mexico, and are always willing to take a bait or lure. Most importantly though, everyone can relate to catching bluegill as a child – there’s no doubt that they were the first fish many of us ever caught!
Many of us have experienced the thrill of catching a bluegill at least once in our lives, but few anglers have more than a couple of go-to methods for pursuing them. When those usual tactics fail to yield results, most just give up and move on to greener pastures. But if you are an avid bluegill enthusiast like myself, you will want to make sure that catches can be made throughout the whole year. This is certainly attainable, as long as appropriate bait is used and the correct season is taken into consideration.
Best Baits for Bluegill
When it comes to baiting bluegill, worms are the go-to option. Stopping by the gas station for a pack of dillies or crawlers is generally seen as routine whenever you’re heading out to the bluegill pond during summer. Rigging up is simple: you can put the entire small earthworm on the hook or pierce small chunks of larger nightcrawlers onto it. For best results in terms of catching bluegill, worms should be suspended a few feet under bobbers and cast around weed beds and spawning areas.
The shallows are always a good place to find some fish, but true bluegill enthusiasts know that the real slabs can be found in deeper water. After the water temperatures have climbed in the mid-summer, the largest bluegill species in any body of water will move off the shallow sandbars and weedy shelves they inhabit during the spring and early summer and gather in water depths of 10 to 20 feet near their spring haunts.
For the best catch of bluegills, use larger, more lively baits such as leeches or minnows on small jigs and size 8 or 10 bait hooks with split shot for weight. Use your electronics to find deep edges of weed lines or sandbars where you’ve seen or captured bluegill earlier in the season. Position your baits a few inches off the bottom, then employ a small twitching action with just the tip of your rod. You’ll soon have a cooler full of fat bluegills.
In addition to worms, leeches and small baitfish, bluegill have an affinity for terrestrial insects such as grasshoppers and crickets. Ifyour local bluegill spot doesn’t have much deep water or weed beds, these insects can be a great way of increasing your catch. They can be bought in many stores or caught easily. To rig them, push the point of a small hook through their thorax then add a bee-bee spit shot to the line about 5 to 6 inches above the bait. Cast this onto edges of shallow structures like docks or log jams on lakes and ponds or into back eddies on rivers and creeks. Let it slowly sink to the bottom, twitching occasionally until it’s slammed by a voracious bluegill.
Best Lures for Bluegill
Many anglers are unaware of the effectiveness of certain lures on bluegill. Bluegills are known for being docile and opportunistic feeders, but they can also be predatory when the mood strikes.
In early spring or in the late fall, when the fish are aggressively feeding in preparation for winter, lures are the best time to use them for bluegills, when they are either on or just moving off their spawning beds. If lures are fished near or on the surface of the water during these times, they can be effective.
Using a small rubber grub with a 1/64- to 1/4-ounce jig head and a 1- to 2-inch Squirming Grub or Mister Crappie is the best way to lure bluegill. Cast the grub into a likely-looking spot after stringing it onto the hook so that its tail extends fully behind the rig. When reeling in the grub, keep the rig just a few inches under the surface after letting it sink a few inches below the surface.
While the grub is most effective when you know where the fish are, it’s hard to beat a small inline trout spinner like a Panther Martin or Roostertail when you’re covering water looking for bluegills. With a light-action rod and light line, these small flashy lures can be cast a long distance and reeled in rapidly just below the surface. Schools of gills that spot the spinner moving past will be attracted to it in no time.
If you need some more intense bluegill action in your life, you need to be chasing them on topwater. When the fish are gathered in large schools in the shallows, using small lures like the Micro Popper and Tiny Torpedo is the best way to pursue bluegill. When you smack these lures down among the gathered fish and twitch and pop them across the surface, they can draw some really explosive takes, and you’ll be able to see the tiny docile bluegill in a whole new way.
Best Flies
As far as fly anglers are concerned, bluegill are a wide variety of fish that eat small nymphs and surface insects, just like trout, and will even chase down a small streamer like a Woolly Bugger if given the opportunity. Fly fishing for bluegill can become one of your favorite pursuits if you pair these flies with a 2- or 3-weight fly rod and some light tippet.
Casting out a tandem nymph rig is my favorite way to chase bluegill with a fly rod. This set up requires tying a bead head nymph, like a Pheasant Tail or Hares Ear, at the end of your leader. Then add a section of tippet and attach a second non-weighted nymph, such as Prince Nymph or Soft Hackle, as the dropper. When retrieved with quick strips, similar to that of streamers, this rig will be sure to draw strikes. Make sure to keep hold of your line tight; you don’t want to be caught off guard when it gets hit!
Bluegill have an affinity for surface lures such as the Foam Park Hopper and Flash Beetle. These terrestrial insect-inspired flies can be deployed along bank edges of lakes and ponds, or twitched across the water in the evening when they are more active. You also have poppers like the Mini Pop and Bett’s Bream that can be used for larger catches – so if you’re looking to fill up your freezer with some bluegill fillets, don’t forget these! Smacking one of these poppers into lily pads or brush piles over a deep hole during midsummer will likely be met with a surprising attack from an oversized fish.
When angling grows complex, it can be a stressful experience. I can personally attest to this from my own fly fishing expeditions in search of winter steelhead, muskie, and trout. However, taking a break by going bluegill fishing relieves some of that tension.
There’s something special about the simplicity and innocence of using a line to catch bluegills. Their willingness to take the bait and their lively fight on the other end can be very calming. It brings back memories of when catching a fish was all that mattered; how, with just a gently bobbing float, happiness could be found in the little struggle at the end of your line. On occasions like these, it’s good to be reminded of this feeling.
