Bull Gills

[BDR]

Had an awesome day on the water yesterday with Matt Johnson. We set out in search of trying to find the larger gills and man did we find them. It was one of those bites that even goes beyond the hopes for the day. I have never seen, much less caught, so many 8-9 1/2 gills in a day. And a few 8+ inch pumpkinseeds to top it off.

I was very impressed, again, by the Rat grub/ stub grubs. The slow fall of these larger ribbed bodies was definately the ticket.

Even caught a few on top water poppers. That is fun!

[Matt Johnson]

No doubt an impressive day! We landed more big gills in one day than I have in the last year! Going into the day I wouldn't have expected things to turn out the way they did. 15 fish over 9 inches is incredible! Right place at the right time for sure.

I did well on the Pearl/Glow/Orange and Pearl/Chartreuse Stub Grub on either a 1/32oz Orange or Chartreuse Collarless jighead. I worked that below a tiny float. Some fish were right up in shallow against the shoreline while others were out slightly deeper. Dark bottoms were key once again. Sight fishing for these fish was very tough, but it didn't matter a whole lot because they were holding in several different areas. Watching BDR land several fish on a tiny top-water popper was pretty cool!

Here's a few more pics from yesterday...

Good Fishin,

Matt Johnson

[deacon]

Nice fish guys, send some warm weather to northern MN. No big gills in the shallows with this last cold snap.

Crappies are on the beds and still biting but not as good as last week. Caught all males today on plastics.

[Oldtyme]

Wow. Nice gills. What are guys putting in your water to make 'em so big.... ?

Nice to see the stub grubs are working. I'm waiting on a sampler pack to arrive (thanks CrappieTom).

While I don't have any stub grubs yet, I do have some of the culprits. Going to try my luck at just throwing the jig w/out the spinner (1st time)

I'm getting ready to go out this morning (getting ready = lots of coffee)

I'll be on the water before the sun comes up today (seeing how it's supposed to rain today....I'm going out early)

Off topic, but the culprits do work well on a beetlespin. Tested & proven

[Juan Grande]

Matt,

I just got a digital camera. How do I post pics on the site? I noticed that if you click "Image" on the "Instant UBB Code" menu it asks for an http:...do I need to enter an IP address or something for my computer? Please let me know.

John

[Matt Johnson]

You need to have your pictures placed somewhere on the Internet and then you have to pull them from there. There are several different image hosting sites that you can use. Once you have you picture on a site, all you need to do is right click on the picture and go under properties, then highlight and copy the URL address, and then paste that in between . Go to the Photo Sharing Forum and run a search for image hosting sites or how to post a picture and you should be able to get more info. I'm not exactly sure which sites to use (I just use a blank page on my website), you might want to post this same question in the Picture Forum...

Good Fishin,

Matt Johnson

[Juan Grande]

Didn't get any real "bull gills" but caught a nice mess of 8" sunnies on ratsos tipped with wax worms or small panfish leeches. Caught them on Memorial Day when the bass failed to bite, all were released.

[Matt Breuer]

Okay, I have to add some pics. Since 8-9" 'gills are very common this time of year, I thought I'd add some taste instead of size. We traveled to the Brainerd area for some hybrids and greens and were rewarded, here are a few...

Beautiful hybrid green/'gill sunfish...

A few other beautiful fish...

[codeman]

A buddy and I were fishing a lake by Backus a couple of weeks ago searching for some bull gillies. We've had limited success over the years on this lake. On Tuesday, we caught and released 12 gills that were 10" or larger. The following day it rained and rained so we waited until late morning to hit the lake. We fished a few choice spots with little success. On what turned out to be our final stop, we hit the mother load! We landed and released 28 bluegills that were 10 to 10.5" in less than an hour. We lost quite a few more in the weeds and I had my line (2 lb) broken twice. This was by far the best day ever fishing bluegills for me and I doubt I will ever see another day like this again, which is okay with me. I did weigh a few of the fish and they were consistantly a pound. By the way, I had to run the bilge pump 4 times during the 5 hours we were on the water and believe me, neither of us were complaining about the weather. Needless to say, we had the lake to ourselves. The only mistake we made was not bringing a camera along into the boat that day.

[Matt Johnson]

codeman,

I see you are from CR, nice to see another local Congrats on the monster gills, sounds like an awesome couple days on the water!

So, what was the magic bait/lure and did you find these pigs on their beds or elsewhere?

Good Fishin,

Matt Johnson

[Matt Breuer]

Here's a bull 'gill if I've ever seen one! My clients got two over 10" on their trip up here this week!! Good stuff!

Kelly with a monster!

[Blackdogs]

That looks like a female.(And yes, I do mean the fish!)

[Matt Breuer]

Negative, that fish was all male my friend, the brute that saves the eggs and lets the bluegill legacy live on!

[Tofishem]

Blackdog your right.

That's a female. All bull gills are purple in color and have the big knot on their forehead!

Females have a much lighter hue to their belly and their breast is yellow-orange.

Bruce

[Coontail]

Tofish,

Yer right on dude!

[Matt Johnson]

Regardless of gender, that's a nice gill! Congrats to your client Matt, good job!

Good Fishin,

Matt Johnson

[BDR]

To be honest I never equated the term BullGills as a gender thing, Guess that makes sense though. I just refer to jumbo style as bulls, pigs whatever.

Nice fish Breuer!!

[Matt Johnson]

Yeah, I usually think of a "bull" gill as being a big gill, just like I call a big crappie a "slab" regardless of gender. I guess I never really related "bull" with gender, but I guess you could look at it as being a male gill, it does make sense with term being applied. I guess I better watch my terminology from now on, because some of gills I've posted and labeled as bull gills have been females.

I've caught males and females this time of year that are light in color though, so I'm not totally convinced on the whole color theory. Location can have something to do with it, and just like other species and animals, not all males are involved in the reproduction process and might not take a different form or color.

Good Fishin,

Matt Johnson

[Corey Bechtold]

Then this is...

???

[Matt Breuer]

Corey,

I would assume again, male. It has the hump just above the eye, which that girls had as well, and little to no belly, while most of the females we were catching were very plump.

For the short time I saw the fish taking it off the hook and measuring it, it sure seemed male to me. Could be wrong though I guess.

As for color, I've caught some nice bulls that were very very light due to the sun and whatnot, as well as some very purple and dark females.

[Gus]

Here are a couple of nice fish I caught this weekend off my dock on a shrimpo. Both released.

[Matt Johnson]

That's what I'm talking about Gus! Gotta love it when they cover every bit of your hand and the tail has to lay up on your arm. Nice fish!

Good Fishin,

Matt Johnson

[codeman]

Matt,

The gills were caught in 7 feet of water interspersed with cabbage. The surface temp was 62 degrees that day. The crappies were still staged outside of their spawning areas in a pre-spawn mode (we caught and released a few of these also). The gills we caught earlier in the week were in a small, shallow, warm bay aproximately 80 feet in diameter. I have been making my own jigs for many years. That particular day I was using a standard 1/64th ounce pink jig on a # 10 gold hook with some pink feathers tied onto it. It looks like a flu-flu with larger feathers. I like to use longer feathers to get more action out of them when twitching it during retrieval. I did have to tip the jig at times with a waxie, but for the most part they would take it when twitching it irregularly. I'd like to add that I've had decent success in deeper water (10' to 14') on that lake with a jig that I tie to simulate a dragonfly. For those of you that have not tried a live large, double-winged dragonfly as bait, you need to give it a whirl. This is the time of year the bull gills go wild on these insects. The dragonflies are easy to catch as they are setting on a tree trunk drying their wings. Attach them through the thorax onto a small jig head. I can't count the times I cast this out and the bobber never gets a chance to float. And more times than not the gill will be a big bull. When you look at the actual size of the dragonfly, one would think its way too large for a bluegill to inhale but don't let the size fool you. The bullies go wild for this bait throughout June.

codeman