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Way to go, man. I've been fishing the Clermont chain the last few weekends with my son. I pestered Ace Hardware enough to start carrying crickets. I'll be hunting some shellcrackers this weekend.

Nice one! Looks like a "perty" spot to fish, too.

I fished with doughballs when I was younger. The downside is that the little "bait stealers" will nip at it until it's gone. Sometimes I would chum them on the surface with pieces of the heal. ...

Now THAT's a Cracker, Speckanator! Where'd ya find that biggun?

I tried the Strike King itsy this morning. It needs to be tuned, but it still produced a nice big bluegill and a small bass. The small treble hooks are a pain though. Even when I wasn't fishing...

Welcome to the "brotherhood" of monster bream hunters! :D

There are tons of cricket farms. Just google "live crickets" and several will pop up. It's probably better to find them as close as possible. One of the most popular is "Flukers"...

I think the life span of a cricket is 6-8 weeks. So, it depends on how mature the crickets are when you buy them. If they're full grown, they shouldn't last more than a week. If you buy them at...

The bait shops recommend putting a tater in with them.

Walt's Yellow Bee Bluegill Popper (sz 8)- Available at my favorite site for buying Flies...Breambugs.com

http://i88.photobucket.com/albums/k189/Duckbill_336/Fly-gill.jpg

Way to go, Bait_Shaker! Looks like a fish fry in the makin. Congrats on the successful field test.

Well I had a "first" today. I caught a nice speck on a live cricket. He was a nice one, too. Easy 1-1/2 pounder. We were trying to find shellcracker and bluegill when she surprised me.
Anybody...

I brought up this topic a while back and got mixed views. Some folks swear that dead crickets work just fine. Others say they need to be wigglin' to be effective.
I feel like if the "bite" is on,...

Man, those look awesome! If you'd like to send a few my way, I'd be glad to test them out down here in central Florida. Purely for market research purposes obviously :D .

I use the same method as that guy, but I'm not THAT good. I don't believe my knife has ever been that sharp either.

Nice job! The bigun' has shoulders like a linebacker. Looks like they've been fannin beds. The one is missing half it's tail.

Yep...the infamous Copper head or purple monster. I think all bream are pretty fish, but those copper heads are gorgeous.

The picture doesn't show their girth very well, but these suckers were...

I agree...it looks like a warmouth perch. I caught one on my flyrod the other day that looked just like it. It looked like it swallowed a baseball.

Thanks guys! Patience is the name of the game. It's beyond rewarding though when he calls me "his bestest bud". :D

I had my son Josh(he's 5) with me this morning. Between untangles and hook baiting, I tossed the popper. I caught two bass and about 15 Bluegills. I kept 4 biguns....

My boy and I slipped out this morning. He caught 3 including this big one. I was tossing the flyrod and I posted pics in the fly-fishing forum....

We caught a big mess of big ole Bluegills today. This brute was king of the batch by just a shade. The picture doesn't quite do it justice. He was really thick. Notice his tail is tore up from...

That's a dandy for sure.

Nice mess Young gun. We used to catch shellcrackers on the St Johns down in Sanford. We would wade out and collect mussels and use them for bait. Fun stuff.

Welcome Zac! I share your passion for flyfishing for bluegills. I've been at it for a long time, but I never get tired of it.

I've got a great place for you and your Nucanoe. It's called Ozello and it's just south of Hommasassa. You take the Ozello trail off of 19 all the way to the end. There is a small causway leading...

I like the smaller body beetle spins. For dark water I mostly use black or orange. For clear I use white or yellow.
I'll bet some of these fellas that make their own have some good ones, though.

I picked up that same reel last year and it has proven to be very tough. The drag has been stressed to the max several times this year and it still works great.

Congrats on a great day of fishing. It doesn't matter what size they are when you catch them on the fly.

Slipped out this morning to give the new 4wt rig it's initiation. The bite was fairly slow but I did catch several decent 'gills and a couple of bass. The first official fish on the new rig was the...