Best day of the year!

[Splitshot]

Dennis and I planned to go fishing on the 4th but hadn’t decided where to go until the 3rd. My first choice would be to fish bluegills, I told Dennis on the phone. Dennis agreed and he picked the lake. We arrived about 8AM and it was still raining. We spent the first couple of hours fishing with Mike our host and only caught about 8 decent gills.

It started to thunder and lightning and we headed for the dock and the safety of Mike’s Dad Jim’s pool room. Since this was Mike’s first day of vacation with his family, he decided to let us go out in the rain without him when the lightning stopped. Dennis and I spent an hour looking for the gills and finally found them in 11 feet of water off a bar about 150 yards from shore.

The fish were suspended about 3 feet off the bottom and once we figured that out the fishing was steady. It was slow enough that you could fish 2 rods with one on the bottom. We caught about a dozen the first hour all between 10 and 11.6" with a few decent perch mixed in. Then the bobber bite stopped and we started picking them up right on the bottom. We ended up keeping 48 and returned many of the biggest fish.

I know I must have sounded like a broken record as I kept saying, this must be a bass, because it was fighting way to hard to be a bluegill. I was wrong and although we did catch a few bass, most of the fish we caught were monster gills. For a while, I used my 11.5 ft two weight and those gills would bend it to the hilt. Id wager our largest gill weighed close to 2 lbs.

Thanks to Mike and his family and Dennis for allowing me the opportunity to fish for these oversized bluegills, it turned out to be my best day of the year.

Mike with one big fat gill.
http://www.michigan-sportsman.com/photopost/data/529/07-04-05_11_5_gill.JPG

Dennis with perhaps the biggest of the day. These fish have not spawned yet, at least the big ones.
http://www.michigan-sportsman.com/photopost/data/529/07-04-05_Dennis_11_6_gill.jpg

This cooler is almost full and with less than our limit.
http://www.michigan-sportsman.com/photopost/data/529/07-04-05_bluegills.jpg

[michigan-fishermen1219]

Nice catch. what lake was that one?

[icefishermanmark]

nice gills! those are some slabs.

[Jr.BowmanMI]

nice fish man... lol what lake?

[mechanical head]

Thunder, lighting, high winds, and a little sunshine at times is the perfect formula for big gills, what I thought was going to be a very tough bite turned out to be a great and if not the best day on the water all year. As Ray had said we talked about floating a trout river Monday, but after he said he had fished trout the past several weekends he wanted another look at a lake he got a brief look at fishing with me last year. The Lake is in Osecola county but as a request of our host we cannot be anymore specific than that, and its a private lake if that makes a difference.
As the first storm had past we thought we had a clear day to fish, little did we know that it was just the beginning of a line of storms that passed over all day.
By lunch time and our second round of pool we got the radar to come up and we saw that it wasn't going to clear up much if any at all. Thats when Ray said "well if it's not gonna stop than we might as well start getting wet now". Personally I have never meet a guy who fishes harder in some of the foulest conditions and catches lots of fish. Earlier in the day with our host who lives on this lake for 20+ years toured us around in the morning, fishing the shorelines and reeds and beds in close, we caught plenty of 7-8 inch gills, but Ray I knew different that the bigger gills were gonna be deep, so as our host pitched his bait up near the shore, we keep tossing out in the deeper end. Again as we headed out in a near down pour it may have been a blessing, it was just the two of us and after studying a topographical picture of the lake we went in search for a under water point that ended only to begin a sunking island another 100 yards out. In between the two is where we found the biggest gills, and Ray had mentioned we let go the biggest, keep a few but ready loaded up on the 9-10 inchers along with some very nice perch and oh' of course we caught and released Rays favorite, tons of 8-14 inch bass. Here are a few pictures in the nicer weather,
Rays noodle rod at work,
http://www.michigan-sportsman.com/photopost/data/529/medium/rod.jpg

Nice yellow belly,
http://www.michigan-sportsman.com/photopost/data/529/medium/perch.jpg

Shoulders on a gill,
http://www.michigan-sportsman.com/photopost/data/529/medium/1gill.jpg

Ray with lots of color, this fish was average just under 10 inches,
http://www.michigan-sportsman.com/photopost/data/529/medium/raygill1.jpg

Hope you enjoyed..

[Splitshot]

It's hard to believe that bluegills can pull that hard. I'm ready to go any time lol. Maybe next time we will catch some of those 12" plus gills. I use to fish several lakes that hold gills that big, but they are almost all private today.

We had some for dinner Monday evening and they were awesome.

[Gone Fishing]

Ray, I think you told me one time that all fisherman are pan fisherman at heart. How true that is especially when your hungry for a fish dinner. :p Good job guys! :)

[sfw1960]

What a bunch of BULLS!
Excellent post!
Fabulous job on the fish also!!
Looks like a great time was had....
I love to hear that , when a group of guys that have the skills , know-how & finesse to literally CRUSH the resident adult breeder population , just keep a fair amount , knowing they are responsible & sensible enough to realize that tomorrow's brood stock is kept safe in their hands.....and next year there will be more like those....

Thanks for sharing guys...
:D Robert :D

[Ladygill]

Look at all those beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeuuuuuuuuuutiful fillets. It is making me hungry. Thank goodness Im going fishing Friday with my sweetie pie. Gonna go look for Perch and Bluegills on Croton Pond. Hope I can join the photoshoot here. Thanks for sharing the photos guys.

[bigsid]

Ray and Dennis,

You guys definitely know how to put it to 'em!

Great story and beautiful pics!!

Sid

[MSUICEMAN]

good job fellas! man, i can hear the sizzle of the skillet already!

steve

[Rondevous]

Nice going guys!

Great pics too!

[deputy865]

Nice fish guys.... Hope to find like that on our lake one mornin'.
Shane

[jimbobway]

Nice pics , any crappies in them waters ?Jumbo Panfish Waters my favorite .

[mechanical head]

No Crappie, no pike, walleye, smallmouth, no gas motors, just big gills, perch, lots of largemouth and a few rockies. A gin clear lake that must be fished light, I think I was running 5lb flouro and Ray was running 3.5lb. I hope to get out again soon.

[DaveW731]

Great pictures: I agree with the idea that all fishermen are panfishermen at heart.....
Seems like access to private water is about the only way to consistantly hit big gills anymore: a friend of mine has a pond with similar fish in them and we do the same thing: keep a few of the "eaters" and release the rest to maintain the population.
Thanks for sharing!

[Splitshot]

Way back when, I knew about 20 lakes that had 10"+ gills but only about 10 now and only 3 have public access. Even then those big gills are hard to come by.

The 8 and 9 inchers are the best eating but this time we had to keep a few bigger ones so we had enough for a dinner. That's the exception however.

You can overfish bluegills and that is why I never keep a bass. The bass help keep a lake in balance. I own a lot on what used to be one of the best bluegill lakes around until it was developed and all my neighbors started keeping all the legal bass they caught.

Lake Ovid is another example. A couple of years after it opened my son and I kept 50 bluegills that weighed 64 lbs. It was over populated with 8 and 9 inch bass and the park ranger wanted it to be a bass lake so he got fisheries to allow all limits removed for bass.

Now it is not a good bluegill lake or bass lake even though it has some decent gills and some decent bass and a lot less fishermen.

[mondrella]

Nice catch guys!
Nothing better than big gills and perch. I have a thing for the trout right now. But once hard water shows up its time to go get some gills. I am lucky around home here there are a good number of lakes with big gills. To catch them consistantly is another story.

[treehunter2]

way to go there guys , makes my mouth water just seening the pic's. :corkysm55

[Ladygill]

Look at all those beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeuuuuuuuuuutiful fillets. It is making me hungry. Thank goodness Im going fishing Friday with my sweetie pie. Gonna go look for Perch and Bluegills on Croton Pond. Hope I can join the photoshoot here. Thanks for sharing the photos guys.

Well my sweetie and I went to Croton Pond and hammered the perch. We caught 45 that averaged 8 inches. Hubby caught the largest one, 9.5 inches I believe. Had one of the best days of fishing together in a longtime. I smell them cooking already. Thanks for the beautiful day sweetie!! ;)