Big gills and worms, insects, etc

[Burchoid]

I found a pod of 9"+ gills hugging a soft bottom in 10-15' of water. Weeds came out to about 4' of water so this was in the middle of nowhere in terms of weeds or structure.

I released most the biggies, but kept 1 9.5 incher and some smaller ones for eating.

The smaller ones stomaches were full of a grainy green substance, I suppose smaller plankton and insects. But when I cleaned the larger fish I went into its stomache and found something much different. There were a bunch of small clear and red worm like critters with an obvious head and tail, about 1" long a peice, and 1.5 millimeters wide. Are these bloodworms? Any idea what the best presentation is to bring in front of these gills? They were hard to get to bite. I had the most success split shot rigging a waxie on a plain hook or trying to keep a bobber rig as close to bottom as possible. It seems there should be a better way to present to these fish if they are plucking some sort of micro-worm off the bottom of the lake.

[Matt Johnson]

First off, sounds like you got on some great fish! 9"+ gills are a lot of fun! Congrats!

Ok onto the matter at hand...

Those could be blood worms.

I would down-size to ice fishing tackle. Drop down a Ratso or Shrimpo and bounce it off the bottom. Also try dragging a red plastic along the bottom and slight off it.

My guess is that those fish will devour whatever you slide in front of them if it's similar to what they're feeding on. An easy meal if is falls in front of their face and is free-floating off the bottom...

[deepportage01]

You might want to try a down sized drop shot rig with some of the same baits, the combo of those baits and a little poof on the bottom from the sinker could be the ticket?

Have fun man

[Tyler Holm]

Sounds exactly like bloodworms. Pannies feed on them heavily at night when they come out and roam the muddy bottoms. You might try a red Berkley Gulp maggot. I think there are other blood worm imitations as well. Like MJ said you might hit the jackpot with a shrimpo/ratso in the deep red colors.

[Tony Boshold]

Oh, you where in the middle of something, a soft bottom with a creme filling of big gills.

I think you are describing blood worms too. For a dead on imitation try the Skimpies tails in Motor oil (its a clear, greenish, red depending on how the light hits it) from Little-Atom. You may want to try some different colors like red and even black. I like to switch colors of the plastics until they take a color to the knot, your on the spot, now you just have to work it out. It's the fastest and easiest way to figure out what they want. Depending on the day and even the minute, you may want some bright colors too. I would use some "ice" jigs like the Optic Stealth from L-A. Let it hit the bottom and work it with tiny jigging motions up from the bottom. Stopping for upto 5 seconds before jigging it some more. If you have a flasher and some ice rods don't ovelook them. Try double anchors too. If all else fails, try sifting thru the material from the bottom of the lake that comes up with the anchor. You just may get some free bait that will probably beat anything.