2023 Bluegill/Crappie/Sunfish showoff thread

[Stonedfish]

For those of us in Western Washington (Whidbey Island) where are some good blue gill lakes within reasonable driving distance? I miss the farm ponds and small lakes of my Native Nebraska.

Theron,
If you’d like, send me a pm with your email address and I’ll send you a pdf document on warmwater fish that used to be on the WDFW website. When they revamped the website a few years ago, a lot of good info got deleted which sucks.
It’s dated, but much of the info is still valid and I’ve used it to have success.
It gives a list of lakes by county and the type of warmwater fish they contain. Some of that has probably changed since it was published, mainly due to bucket biologists.
SF

 

[iveofione]

I have yet to find a pond > 1/2 acre that doesnt have bluegill/sunfish in them. I'd chuck a little popper at the shoreline of any available water and I bet you'll hit.

On a spring afternoon in about 1985 a friend and I fished Silver Lake near Castle Rock for bluegills. We used tiny foam spiders with rubber legs and caught over 220 fish in less than 4 1/2 hours. I caught 102 and he caught the rest. The second that fly hit the water they were on it, we caught a fish about every 90 seconds for hours!

 

[Zak]

Dave Whitlock's "Panfish Part 1" - Fly Fisherman

There's a panfish pond near your home, and it can provide you with superb fly fishing.

www.flyfisherman.com

 

[iveofione]

Dave Whitlock's "Panfish Part 1" - Fly Fisherman

There's a panfish pond near your home, and it can provide you with superb fly fishing.

www.flyfisherman.com

I started fishing in 1946 and in the intervening 77 years have caught a vast variety of fish of all sizes. But after all those years and all of those fish there is a joy about catching panfish on a light fly rod that just can't be equaled. They are just a delight, pure and simple. Whitlock's treatise on panfish is a must-read for someone aspiring to be a successful panfish fisherman as he covers so many different sub species.

There are a lot of words to describe those little fish but the one that seems to suit them the best is pugnacious. They are aggressive little buggers and their fight is all out of proportion to their diminutive size. A good day of bluegill or punkinseed fishing is a joyful day for sure.

 

[M_D]

I got on the top water board with a 'purple haze' themed gurlger. No monsters and it wasn't anything near Ive's catch rate but there were enough to make me laugh with my 3wt

There are a lot of words to describe those little fish but the one that seems to suit them the best is pugnacious. They are aggressive little buggers and their fight is all out of proportion to their diminutive size. A good day of bluegill or punkinseed fishing is a joyful day for sure.

well said

 

[rotato]

Fun mixed bag of bluey’s and small bass on a foamie hoppers

Wind was tough last evening
Almost got pinned in the canoe by some gusts

 

[Islander]

I got on the top water board with a 'purple haze' themed gurlger. No monsters and it wasn't anything near Ive's catch rate but there were enough to make me laugh with my 3wtView attachment 65343
View attachment 65344

well said

Sunfish on a 3wt. are a hoot!

 

[rotato]

Anybody else running a hopper dropper set up for these guys?
I haven’t secured a double yet

 

[Bugmeister]

I sometimes use a small popper with a soft hackle dropper. I haven’t had much success with the dropper. Unsure why. They like the popper, but maybe my dropper selection is bad or I need to adjust for depth, or ?. I plan to experiment more with the setup this summer.

Yesterday evening after work I had Bluegillapalooza…. All caught on the smallest popper pattern I have. So much fun!

 

[rotato]

A couple things that helped me with the dropper was a longer section, like 24 inch, between flies and some rubber legs. I received a few tugs on the nymph before whacks on the floatie.
hopefully test this afternoon

have a good weekend y’all’s

 

[Matt B]

I think this is a green sunfish. Correct me if I’m wrong. Caught in a creek on my buddy’s property in Northeast Alabama. I caught a bunch of these and some bluegill, and none of the bass that I saw. One of the bass was pretty nice size.

 

[James St. Clair]

Caught incidentally while chucking poppers for bass. Pretty little feller! Need to try the dropper nymph off the popper thing. There were 100's of these guys mixed in with some smaller bass!

 

[iggie]

View attachment 65716

I think this is a green sunfish. Correct me if I’m wrong. Caught in a creek on my buddy’s property in Northeast Alabama. I caught a bunch of these and some bluegill, and none of the bass that I saw. One of the bass was pretty nice size.

That might be a rock bass.

 

[Bugmeister]

I started fishing in 1946 and in the intervening 77 years have caught a vast variety of fish of all sizes. But after all those years and all of those fish there is a joy about catching panfish on a light fly rod that just can't be equaled. They are just a delight, pure and simple. Whitlock's treatise on panfish is a must-read for someone aspiring to be a successful panfish fisherman as he covers so many different sub species.

There are a lot of words to describe those little fish but the one that seems to suit them the best is pugnacious. They are aggressive little buggers and their fight is all out of proportion to their diminutive size. A good day of bluegill or punkinseed fishing is a joyful day for sure.

Thanks for providing that Whitlock article. Yesterday mid-afternoon i had a few hours free, so i strung up my 7’ 3wt Butterstick, grabbed some small poppers and small buggers and had good old fashioned fun.

 

[rudyc]

Poppers, nymphs, soft hackles and wooly buggers, the 'gills love 'em all!!

 

[Bugmeister]

Today I went out again - this time with the Hobie. Fishing was pretty slow, but still a few bluegill to hand. Weird though - large number of dead perch. Seems to happen post spawn very year, but I have never seen as many floaters as I did today.

 

[Reel fun]

 

[Pink Nighty]

View attachment 70063

That's the larges pumpkinseed I've ever seen

 

[Jake Watrous]

Not sure of what kind of crappie it is, but here is my first only one.

 

[skyriver]

Not sure of what kind of crappie it is, but here is my first only one.
View attachment 70171

I think that's a white crappie. And I believe the crappie I usually catch, like this one a couple weeks ago on a frog gurgler, are black crappie.