Thread: How to Locate Bluegill Beds

If the bed has active spawning going on you can smell them. They like to bed on red sandy bottoms, they also like gravel.....so if you know of any of these places go try there. If the water is not stained you can stand up in the boat and ease around the shoreline and spot them.

Do you believe you can hear redear??? When they are sucking on tupelo tree they make a poping sound .. This is really true. I no longer fish for them as my two hearing aid don't help???

Bluegill will bed in a bunch of different places, in the lakes I fish, a flat, or a small shallow pocket, or shallow point are some of the best places to look. You should be able to spot them next to the bank or close to shallow cover with a good pair of polarized glasses. Beds are usually not that deep, unless your talking about redears, they will spawn deeper, were talking about visible beds. Some believe gills will bed in 10' or so, but those are a little harder to find. You may see 5 beds or you may see 100, just depends. Spotting them is farily simple, if you know where to look. As mentioned before, you can smell them when on the spawning beds. Good luck!

Originally Posted by Locator79

Bluegill will bed in a bunch of different places, in the lakes I fish, a flat, or a small shallow pocket, or shallow point are some of the best places to look. You should be able to spot them next to the bank or close to shallow cover with a good pair of polarized glasses. Beds are usually not that deep, unless your talking about redears, they will spawn deeper, were talking about visible beds. Some believe gills will bed in 10' or so, but those are a little harder to find. You may see 5 beds or you may see 100, just depends. Spotting them is farily simple, if you know where to look. As mentioned before, you can smell them when on the spawning beds. Good luck!

really? what do they smell like?

Originally Posted by jonnythefisherman1

really? what do they smell like?

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

Originally Posted by jonnythefisherman1

really? what do they smell like?

FISH

Originally Posted by Buckeyemusky

FISH

See, I was thinking more like DINNER:D

use the SI if they're out in deeper water to track them down:D:D:D