Thread: The summer heat

95-96 is springtime weather, not summer till 103. LOL We went to Grand Bayou last weekend and found the bluegills still on beds in a few spots.

Not to start a debate on when gills spawn,but what is the water temps in LA ? Our gills have left the beds,except for the full moon spawners,pretty much finding the gills in the deep water now.I was catching them on jigs in 18' of water last week,air temps in low 90°, water temp not that far behind at 80°.

I couldn't tell you exactly but it felt like bath water last weekend. I was catching decent blues in about 4 feet of water with some intense action.

I'm sitting on my deck cooking a yard bird and I can see my breath right now ha.


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Little Otter, I wish I was there, right now.

Each body of water is different and each year can be different. Bluegill.......just like any other specie....have a mind of their own. On a small 300 acre lake I fish in TN I have seen them come shallow in the spring and stay shallow up until September. A couple of years the water temps have been low 90's...yet they stayed shallow. I was amazed at that....did not even have to put a boat in.....just fish anywhere along the bank and they were right on it. I have no clue why they will do that one year and then the next go deep after the first spawn.....have seen this happen on other lakes also.


Regards

Even as a kid of 9 or 10 years old. I could ride my bike to a small conservation lake about two miles from the house. It had a bait shop that rented Jon boats. Once we started finding it hard to catch the bigger ones around the bank with a cricket or worm as bait and a bobber and split shot and hook....we would rent a boat and move out on the lake in stump fields or out on points with timber and drop off...humps with rocks etc. And we took off the bobbers and cast them out on bottom.

Worked then....works now. Plus we caught channel cats too.

A friend of mine told me the only fishing advice his Dad ever gave him was...if you're not sure what to do...just fish a worm on the bottom. I think crappie are about the only fish you won't catch that way..Lord knows I have caught everything else doing that.

I always fish relatively shallow for bluegill even through the heat of the summer. Plenty of them do go deep, but I prefer fishing shallow with a float (the thrill of bobber watching is addicting to me) and can often find schools of them on flats where the water is 4 - 8 feet deep no matter the heat. Sometimes I need to set the float to about 5 feet, but that is the deepest I'll generally fish a float (I'm no good at slip float techniques). I do like to swim small jigs without a float just off the bottom when fishing without the family as that adds significantly to the possibility of catching some nice shellcrackers. When desperate though, I will resort to drop shotting a cricket or wax worm along drop offs, but only resort to that if I have a few in the cooler and it doesn't look like I'll get enough for a family meal. For pure catching I haven't found anything better, but I find my enjoyment in watching the cork tingle with anticipation before going under.