Thread: How to Locate Bluegill Beds

I see it....all the round depressions showing on the bottom ....look on the left side of the pic. Thats bream beds.

Looks like a gold ball. that's the beds. IF the bream are bedding, their easy to find on a smaller lake. Like others have said, SMELL them out. Once you smell them go upwind and you'll find them. I think it smells like a musty honeysuckle though. Give me a big ole bream bed and my flyrod and I'm in heaven

In deeper water you can look for bubbles coming up...used to find em on Toledo bend like that...you see a bunch of bubbles coming up & chances are the chinquapins are bedding there.

Wow, learn something new everyday I've never paid much attention to the smell omitted from the area of bedded bluegills, but primarily relied on the 'visual' instead. Very easy to see the beds as the area is resembles the surface of a large golf ball :p (i.e. dimples).

In regards to deeper water, I've usually catch them trolling (before I decided to use a fishfinder).

I'll try the 'scented' technique the next time I'm on the water. Heck, might as well look for the bubbles as well .. :p *laughing* .. which reminds me of the time I was fishing and noticed some bubbles in the water behind the boat. I leaned over and nearly fell out at what I'd seen ... a big *&$^# turtle!!! Scared the living crap outta me.. LMAO


As always, thanks for the added tips

Vern

Thanks for the advice guys. I saw a few beds the last time I went out but no bubbles on the surface and no scent. Tried fishing them with some crickets but didn't have any luck. They must have not been bedding. I guess you just have to catch them at the right time. From now on, no scent, no bubbles, means no gills on the bed, at least until I find out otherwise..lol

Originally Posted by crappiepappy

I smelled up a bunch of bedding Bluegill, one time .... and the smell was just like a "fishy smell", not the "dead fish' stinky smell but more of a smell like when you pass by a bucket of fresh caught fish or a stringer full of fish that someone's holding. I was going down a bank, wind blowing towards me .... once the smell went away, I turned back around & started fishing. Sure enough, there they were

I've also heard people say that it smells alot like ripe watermelon :p
I've also heard people say they look for lots of tiny bubbles coming to the surface in an area ... supposedly bubbles are released from the bottom, when the Blugill are making the nest depression.

... cp

the old timers look for bubbles and call it foaming , you can tell the difference in fish bubbles and just air pockets .

How it smells will depend on the lake. THink about it, they're roiling the bottom up when they fan, that's what you smell. Gotta remember the 'foaming', I've found that around here the larger gills are generally the deeper bedding gills.