Pre-Spawn Gills!!!

   Hello! Patrick here again. Although walleye fishing on opener was fun, I always have big panfish on the brain. I can't get away from it either! I'm not complaining at all, I just love trophy class panfish! In order to get mix "bull fix", I decided to head to one of my favorite big bluegill lakes for evening of slip float sinking fun. On this journey, my beautiful wife Stephanie, joined me. It was Monday, May 14th and it was absolutely gorgeous outside. The plan was to take the small boat out and just use the oars. Before we loaded gear in the boat, we had to take cast or two of the dock.

    It was decided, very quickly that the boat was not needed. We were catching some quality fish right from the dock!

   All the fish were up very shallow this evening. With the warm sun and clear skies all day the water temp has come up very quick. I did not have a thermometer to take a reading but, I'm guessing the water temp was around 62-65 degrees

   The lure of choice for this outing was a feather jig tied by a good friend of mine, Chris Salmon, owner and head jig tyer of Slab Jiggies (www.slabjiggies.com). His 1/32 oz jig under a size 0 Thill slip float was the perfect combination for this scenario. I tipped my jigs with 1" Berkley Gulp! minnows, leeches & fry.

I lost track of how many bluegills we caught but, Stephanie estimates that we landed 35-40 nice fish! All fish were released to finish their spawn and to fight another day!

   I can't wait to get back out there! The weekends don't come fast enough. That should change soon though. We, Steph and I, are looking to buy a motor for the boat soon. When that happens...lookout!

Tomorrow night, my buddy Shawn Anderson, the other half of Chasing Leviathans will be joining me in the garage to help me out with some trailer light work and some discussions about some up coming fishing plans. Thanks for reading all! Patrick