Bluegill "slot limit"

[Selmer]

I took a group of my parishioners to my favorite NESD fishing lake on Friday and Saturday. I promised them big bluegills and unbelievable smallmouth fishing. The lake already has a slot limit protecting 14-18" smallmouth, and 5 of the kids topped the 19" mark with smallmouth. I knew we'd be on big bluegills, but wanted to protect the population and still eat well. So I placed a verbal slot limit on the trip. Anything under 7" and over 9.5" in the bluegill world goes back in the lake. Some little ones were caught, but lots of trophies were released, and we still ate very, very well and sent people home with fish. We had the nices two days of the last 8 weeks, 80 degrees, sunshine, and a light breeze. Pretty sweet trip - 11 member fishing and 4 boats. They decided it shall be the first annual youth and family fishing trip for our churches.

[Scott M]

Sounds like a great trip...what do you think about keeping anything under 7.5 or 8 and letting the rest go? Just spitballing and thanks for protecting the bigguns!

[Selmer]

Except that finding gills under 8" was a challenge.

[Selmer]

And they were hitting pretty much anything. Chunks of leeches, chunks of crawlers, Gulp! maggots, bare hooks, pink jig, white jigs, chartreuse jig, Lindy Little Nippers with no bait at all, and the smallmouth hit anything the bluegills were after and were loaded with crawdads. Bluegills forage questions - they were stuffed with vegetation and had strips of fat in their bellies. Is the vegetation food or byproduct of sucking invertebrates?

[Scott M]

Take a picture on a macro setting the next time you clean fish and see that in the bluegills' bellies.