Fishing for bluegill and braving the rain

“This feels a lot bigger,” my fishing partner for the day, Matt Mattner told me. I looked over and saw a nice bend on the panfish pole he wielded.

We set the spot lock in 17 feet of fairly clear water and tossed out baits towards emergent vegetation. Matt chose a slip bobber set up, and I started with a goober rig. I caught a five- inch bluegill on my first cast and then things went dry. Matt kept hauling small bluegill in with each cast.

I tried a couple more presentations with different artificials and an artificial with a bit of crawler on it. I tossed tight to the “weeds” and worked the baits back towards the boat and down the drop off. I left a jig with a hair skirt hanging off the side of the boat suspended about 18 inches deep and messed with the cooler to fetch a bottle of water. A five-inch bluegill came up from the deep, picked up the jig, and hooked itself.

I mentioned to Matt that “maybe I should recognize the signs and switch to a slip bobber.”

“Might be worth it,” he said He hooked this “bigger feeling” fish half way through my process of rigging the slip bobber. “Feels like a bass,” Matt said. When the fish pulled to the surface, a nine and a half-inch bluegill hung from the line. A richly colored male that picked up in 12 feet of water, so I doubt it came off a bed. The fish took the bait fast and Matt set the hook quick but went deep. “These poles make catching panfish fun again,” I said. “They do,” he replied. I told him hooking a five pound catfish on one makes for an epic battle. Like landing a large musky on a cheap old KMart pole with a Zebco 202. He caught about 30 little gill before hooking this fish. “I guess one of us will be having a fish sandwich for lunch,” I commented and opened the live well for him.

“I can’t believe this lake actually has bluegill that big,” Matt commented.

“I didn’t either until you caught that,” I said.

I fished a bit for gamefish at each spot we set the spot lock. During the first cast I hooked a small northern that wrapped the line around some lily pads and pulled off.

We worked along this shelf slowly, catching small panfish. After we boated another 20 or so fish, Matt’s pole bent heavy again. Another nine and a half inch bluegill.

This process repeated until we floated up on a spot that we hooked three of these bigger gill, all spawned out females, a half inch shorter than the males. The small fish used a tentative bite but the bigger gill hit the bait hard. What started out as an impromptu fish sandwich now looked like a family meal.

The trolling motor started turning the boat in circles and Matt made an inquiry into what the spot lock was doing. I reset the spot lock but we moved a bit off of our little hot spot.

I noticed that the air definitely smelled like wildfire smoke and the sky to the immediate north looked like rain. We debated for a few seconds about racing for the landing, but the heavy sprinkles started and we saw a line of heavy rain coming our way across the lake.

We grabbed our rain gear and managed to pull it on just ahead of the heavy rain. The steady north wind that blew all morning carried the rain down and it did make for a chilly morning, cutting through the fleece I wore. The rain gear cut that wind off. We both started liking the rain gear and wore it even after the rain stopped.

The third time the spot lock went nuts, we discovered the cause. Turns out if the person in the front of the boat puts their foot on the controller it overrides the remote. And if they keep their foot on the controller, the guy with the remote can’t stop the trolling motor. This provided us with a couple of laughs and definitely kind of made us look less professional than we wanted to. But the rain cleared everyone else off the lake, so no one saw it.

Enjoyed a great morning on the water with the lake to ourselves thanks to the rain.

Tight lines everyone!

THROUGH A

DECOY’S

E

YE

BY

CHUCK K OLAR LOCAL OUTDOORSMAN