How do you tell the difference between male and female bluegills?

gets it's usual joke answers .....

here's what I've always believed, right or wrong --

if the belly/chest area is red/orange ... it's male
if the belly/chest area is yellow ... it's female

Now, I could be totally off base on that .... but, all the egg laden Bluegill, that I've ever seen, had yellow belly areas. Mind you, that ain't been alot of them, but I seriously don't recall ever seeing a Bluegill with a red or orange colored belly area ... that was full of eggs.

If my facts are incorrect, then I stand corrected. And ... the answer to the queston would then be ... "you probably can't"

... cp

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I found this artical, maybe it will help.

BLUEGILL

Biologist discover a third type of male bluegill.

In spring, male bluegill make depressions in the floor of lakes and ponds to form nests. He fiercely defends the nest by attacking any intruders that don't resemble female bluegills. The males that build nests are big and have bright colors that attract the smaller, drabber females.

These dominant males have competition from younger, smaller males, called "sneakers", that linger around the edge of the nest and attempt to mate with the females in his harem when he's not looking.

Biologist have discovered a third type of male bluegill. Instead of growing up to be a typical territorial male, some sneakers take on the drab colors of female bluegills. Because of this, they can sneak undetected into a big male's nest to mingle and mate with the females.

I use the color comparison that cp mentioned plus the fact that most of the breeding males we catch on KY and Barkley are very blunt in the front end--bulls we call them. From the front of the spiny dorsal fin to the mouth is very rounded, not tapered or sloped like the little guys or females.

Thanks, guys. I'm just trying to figure out what I see happening out there on the water.

About 6 weeks ago, I was catching lots of big BG and Redear, 9-11". These were probably all males, according to your descriptions. Then all sizes/colors, then it tapered off and was just catching small ones. This past weekend though the BG bite was hotter than hot, catching fish of all sizes, dinks up to 9"ers. The big ones, by the way, had scrapes and abrasions on them (probably from making nests, I guess). Water temp is right around 80.

This makes me think there is either a second spawn going on or the fish spawn in waves maybe.

Some info. Panfishing - Crappie fishing - Bluegill Fishing tackle

sounds like a normal progression, to me. Spawning around the Full Moon, post spawn scattering, dinks staying in shallow water & bigguns heading deeper, then a repeat of the process at the next Full Moon period. Should progress along those same lines thru the Summer months.
I believe your last sentence is correct, on both accounts

... luck2ya ... cp

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SteveJ, good site that you posted. I put it in my favorites, there's always room for learning.

Bluegill

Hey gang,
One very valuable website is pondboss.com, go to the left hand menu on main page, click on "ask the boss" it will take you to the forums page, there are plenty of forums to learn about bluegills. I love that site. Two methods are the opercular flap (the ear) and the genital area to distinguish between male/female.
Jr. B

The males are the round shaped w/ the orange belly and darker coloring. The females are a little longer and less rounded(more crappie shaped) and have more of a yellowish tint, they also have a much meatier filet. If there are eggs inside when you filet them, it's a female

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Set it and forget it.