Schoe
08-29-2007, 07:08 PM
Due to the fact that I went back to work to recoup from my Spain trip, I haven't been fishing a whole lot the last few days until Giller,(Mike) temped me to go to South Central Iowa on my two days off last week, Sun. and Mon., which I jumped on immediately to fish for my most favorite type of fishing, Bluegill.
Not only that, this was to be my maiden voyage in a float tube, which in fact worked out very well. Not to hide anything from fellow members but I won't mention the names of the lakes we fished so it didn't spawn a huge population of Bluegill seekers next year as a lake the size we were fishing could be fished out if hit too hard.
The one thing Giller doesn't do is to keep hammering a lake that produces well. He has a library of so many good Bluegill producing lakes as so not to deplete the spawning population.
We left Moline about 5:00 A.M. last Sun. and got to our destination around 8:00 AM. I suppose if we would have had a movie camera along to get the launching of me in my Tube we could now be selling C D's. Anyway, after Mike got me "fixed up" and launched we set a course for a tree line some 500 yds. away which with very little effort we arrived at. The water depth was around 15 to 20 ft. deep around the trees, ( oh yes, Mike had both of our tubes equipped with a depth and fish finder). It seemed the bigger the tree the more fish were around it, or groups of trees in a line seemed to attract a good population of fish. I suppose a lot of the fish we were marking were Crappie.
Being my first attempt at fishing out of a tube it took some manipulating to get around to some spots I wanted to get to, but when I did I did catch fish, a lot of fish, some of the biggest Bluegill I have ever caught. The bait of the day for me was large Red Worms and Mike did as well with Wax Worms as usual. Mike also had a bonus of two Channel Cats between 3 and 4 Lbs. he caught on Waxies the first day.
We fished until about 4:00 the first day and made our way back to the launch area where Mike performed his magic on the fish we kept which some later became our supper when we prepared a "shore lunch" of deep fried Bluegill and a side of Channel Cat sandwiches in our Motel room with the gear my Ole buddy Doc left me.( that will be another story later).
The next day we went to another small public lake about 30 miles away and used my Flat bottom boat this time with no resistance from me as my legs were rather stiff from the day before of kicking around the lake.
This lake didn't have a lot of structure so we set out just drifting with the wind to locate schools of fish just hoping they were Gills. It started out really slow the first hour but we finally found a good population of fish that were suspended in 12 to 15 ft. of water anywhere from 2 to 9 ft deep and with us betting they were Gills, set up on them for a few drifts and finally anchoring to catch a nice basket of Gills. One being my personal best size so far, well over 1 Lb.
We fished until about noon on Mon. and headed back to Moline. Again, I have to say that Bluegill is my favorite sought after and the best eating,(in my opinion). We kept enough for a few meals that every time I take a bit I will remember the great time I had again with our Pan fish Adviser, Mike Serle. Thanks for a great trip Mike and here's a few pics. of our trip. Schoe
Not only that, this was to be my maiden voyage in a float tube, which in fact worked out very well. Not to hide anything from fellow members but I won't mention the names of the lakes we fished so it didn't spawn a huge population of Bluegill seekers next year as a lake the size we were fishing could be fished out if hit too hard.
The one thing Giller doesn't do is to keep hammering a lake that produces well. He has a library of so many good Bluegill producing lakes as so not to deplete the spawning population.
We left Moline about 5:00 A.M. last Sun. and got to our destination around 8:00 AM. I suppose if we would have had a movie camera along to get the launching of me in my Tube we could now be selling C D's. Anyway, after Mike got me "fixed up" and launched we set a course for a tree line some 500 yds. away which with very little effort we arrived at. The water depth was around 15 to 20 ft. deep around the trees, ( oh yes, Mike had both of our tubes equipped with a depth and fish finder). It seemed the bigger the tree the more fish were around it, or groups of trees in a line seemed to attract a good population of fish. I suppose a lot of the fish we were marking were Crappie.
Being my first attempt at fishing out of a tube it took some manipulating to get around to some spots I wanted to get to, but when I did I did catch fish, a lot of fish, some of the biggest Bluegill I have ever caught. The bait of the day for me was large Red Worms and Mike did as well with Wax Worms as usual. Mike also had a bonus of two Channel Cats between 3 and 4 Lbs. he caught on Waxies the first day.
We fished until about 4:00 the first day and made our way back to the launch area where Mike performed his magic on the fish we kept which some later became our supper when we prepared a "shore lunch" of deep fried Bluegill and a side of Channel Cat sandwiches in our Motel room with the gear my Ole buddy Doc left me.( that will be another story later).
The next day we went to another small public lake about 30 miles away and used my Flat bottom boat this time with no resistance from me as my legs were rather stiff from the day before of kicking around the lake.
This lake didn't have a lot of structure so we set out just drifting with the wind to locate schools of fish just hoping they were Gills. It started out really slow the first hour but we finally found a good population of fish that were suspended in 12 to 15 ft. of water anywhere from 2 to 9 ft deep and with us betting they were Gills, set up on them for a few drifts and finally anchoring to catch a nice basket of Gills. One being my personal best size so far, well over 1 Lb.
We fished until about noon on Mon. and headed back to Moline. Again, I have to say that Bluegill is my favorite sought after and the best eating,(in my opinion). We kept enough for a few meals that every time I take a bit I will remember the great time I had again with our Pan fish Adviser, Mike Serle. Thanks for a great trip Mike and here's a few pics. of our trip. Schoe