Hot Blue Gill

[J. Rentch]

My friends Mark Bange and Rich Batiuk visited a Delaware Pond today and had some great results. We launched about 10 AM to overcast skies and flat water. Water temp is up to 64 degrees. I started with a Golden Deceiver along a shoreline and quickly landed some large Bluegills.

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The action was really hot all the way down the shoreline. I started landing some pickerel on the same fly. This fly was hot today, kept catching lots of BG and Picks.
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After a lunch with the guys in some shade, I headed back and switched to a popper. Wasn’t as effective as the Deceiver, but still caught some fish.
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Later, I had moved to another different shoreline and found my PB for Bluegill- a 9+“ on the Golden Deceiver again.
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At the end of the day, I landed over a dozen Bluegills and Pickerels. Most of the picks were under 12”, but was fun to catch.

[bignose]

Those 9" Bluegills will put a bend in your rod!

Hey: my 1000 th post!

[J. Rentch]

Found my first WP in Weems the other day!

[Mark]

What a nice outing we had!

I drove through a light rain to get there but the sky cleared while I was launching.

I started off well with this bass on an articulated crustal bugger:

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It was tight to the bank. As was this pick on the same fly:

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Then I ran into a bunch of these guys as I was trying to catch bluegills:

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I was casting into gaps in the pads and spatterdock because I thought the bluegills would be holding there. Evidently the vegetation was a pickerel nursery. And that was the case throughout the pond. I've never seen or caught so many small picks on an outing. It would have been nice to find the parents of those fish!

While I was entertaining the micro-picks, John found the bluegills on a particular long shaded bank of the pond. I paddled to that location and in three passes on that bank, I lost count of the bluegills I caught.

They hit a variety of flies:

Squirmy Wormy:

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Crystal Bugger:

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A small gurgler on top:

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Of course, there was the occasional small pick getting into the act:

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But mostly it was chucky 8-inch bluegills. This was my largest, just short of 9-inches:

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April can be a fickle month in ponds. Yesterday, we caught bluegills and small picks to the point where it was hard to keep track of how many we hooked. I'd guess I boated at least 30 gills and over a dozen small picks. The bass and bigger picks were elusive. Actually, I stopped casting larger flies for bass when John showed me where the bluegills were. It's possible the bass were reachable on conventional tackle deep in the vegetation. I caught only three bass, two between 15 and 16 inches and one smaller. Two picks required netting. The rest were tiny.

All in all, it was a very good day for action -- which was long overdue for me this spring.

[J.A. Veil]

Nice work fellas. Hopefully the fish will begin showing more interest in our offerings as the weather warms.

[dsaavedra]

Nice pics and report, congrats on your PB John!

While I don't fly fish, I have been getting the itch to take just an ultralight rod to some freshwater and go after bluegill, sunfish, small bass, basically whatever fun-sized fish will bite, just like you guys did here. I used to fish this way a lot as a kid and it was always fun no matter what I ended up catching.

[Mark]

Dave,

I use 5 to 7 wt. flyrods for my pond outings. They would be considered light to medium weight rods in conventional tackle.

I have an ultralight spinning rod and rarely use it. I have 4 wt. fly rods and rarely use them either.

Small pickerels bit off my bluegill flies several times yesterday. They were hyperactive, numerous, and annoying. They're the reason I used so many different flies.

When I fish my 6 and 7 wt, rods for picks and bass, I use heavier mono tippets and larger flies. The larger flies I cast with them usually deter small fish.

I rarely get bitten off and it's good to have a stouter rod and tippet when bass or picks go into cover.

But sometimes this happens:

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Clearly, too much rod and fly for the fish.

The reverse happens too. On my previous pond outing this nearly 20-inch pickerel hit a small dropper fly on a light tippet intended for bluegills on a 5 wt. rod:


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You just never know...You might have some good battles on your ultralight rod.

[DanMarino]

Amazing fish guys! That looks like a fun trip!