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Bluegills: the biggest little fish




Bluegills are mighty mites.Larry Woody

Bluegills are mighty mites.Larry Woody

Bluegills are big for their size.

The pint-sized panfish run about hand-size. A half-pounder is a bruiser. But the spunky little bantamweights fight hard – probably harder than any other gamefish, ounce-per-ounce – and are plentiful and easy to catch.

If bluegills entered a fishermen’s congeniality contest, they would finish high.

May is bluegill time in Tennessee, when they move into the warming shallows to spawn, fanning plate-size nests in mud or gravel bottoms and darting to and fro as they chase away egg-pilfering minnows.

From enchanted Reelfoot Lake – the unofficial Bluegill Capital of Tennessee – to sprawling reservoirs and murky farm ponds, bluegills are one of our most sought-after fish.

Also known as bream and brim, bluegills are a “starter” species for most fishermen. Kids with cane poles and a JFG coffee can-full of redworms squeal with excitement as they yank in bobber-bouncing bluegills.

It never grows old. I’ve fished the world over, caught saw-toothed wahoo in Hawaii, tail-dancing snook in the Everglades, fence-post-sized Northern pike in Canada and dazzling brook trout in Wisconsin, and I still tingle at the sight of a belligerent little six-inch bluegill tugging a bobber under.

The bobber twitches, and suddenly I’m eight again, barefoot, sunburned and overalled.

At Reelfoot, bluegills are big business. Every spring, anglers make pilgrimages from across the region in pursuit of them. They spend nights in lodges, buy bait and supplies, and dine at lakeside eateries like famed Boyette’s.

Local guides steer newcomers through Reelfoot’s mazes of cypress groves and acres of lily pads to their “secret” bluegill holes. A guide is beneficial not so much for finding bluegills as for knowing how to avoid the shallow lake’s stumps and logs and negotiate winding canals – then finding their way out.

At the end of the day, kids working at resort docks will clean your bluegills for a quarter a fish. They can fillet two or three a minute.

The biggest problem with bluegills is they are so prolific that they over-populate in some lakes, including Old Hickory and Percy Priest. Because of that, they don’t grow very big, even by bluegill standards. You can catch a boat-load of six-inchers, but seldom anything bigger.

But I don’t judge a fish by size alone, and there’s no more relaxing fishing than sitting in a quiet cove on a mild May morning cranking in one struggling, splashing bluegill after another. The pint-sized gills put up a tussle on ultra-light tackle and lightweight fly rods.

As for bait and lures, bluegills aren’t picky. They’ll bite just about anything. Small wet flies and nymphs are fly-fishing favorites, and little plastic grubs and tiny jigs work best for spin fishermen.

Artificial lures avoid constant re-baiting, but I prefer worms and crickets, weighted with a split shot a few feet below a float. Live-bait bobber fishing makes for fast action for kids, and is nostalgic us for old-timers.

Catching bluegills is easy, fast and fun – what fishing is all about.

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