Stockton Bluegills?

[redshad]

Taking the farther-in-law up Saturday to try and catch some bluegills.  I am usually a bass guy and crappie fish some in the spring when they are easy.  I have never targeted bluegills on Stockton.  Does anyone have any advice on what type areas and depths we should try?  We will pick up some worms & crickets for bait.  Thanks for your feedback. 

Jeff

[MoCarp]

yes! bluff banks near the dam are good but most bluff banks are, lite spinning gear 4lb test a plain jighead with a 3rd of a crawler crickets the same way if you can find a place that sells them...look for changes in the bluff rock slides changes in depth or trees that have fell in or old stumps... just let it sink and slowly I mean REALLY SLOW crawl it back start with a 16th size head, perhaps move to an 8th crappie size not bass side hooks....I used 3/32 mushroom heads home cast...

you will pick up a few bonus walleyes and some really nice smallmouths...use green line stay away from the fluro line, also keep the wind at your back, makes a difference

 

[lmt out]

Yes go walleye fishing you will catch all the bluegill you want.

[Rootman]

😂  that is true, up there a few weeks ago on a point, bb, with worms in 25 ft, and could not keep the perch off it, that point has now been christened Perch Point by me lol

[redshad]

Thank you all for the pointers.  We launched at Cedar Ridge around 7:00 Saturday morning.  We tried a few places around the Cedar Ridge area without much luck.  I caught a 12" crappie of a brushpile on a cricket but not much else.  The wind was enough to make it a little difficult with the light figs we were using so I decided to get out of the wind and simplify finding fish so I headed up the river above highpoint.  We started down a channel swing bank with a cricket or worm about 4 to 5 feet deep under a bobber and started catching them.  With it being cloudy they weren't very deep.  Just off the bank where you could get your worm to float with it set 4.5 feet deep.  We worked about 300 yards down the bank and back to where we started ended up catching a mixed bag. We kept 23 hand size bluegills, 2 crappie and 2 channel cats both about 14".  We caught twice as many gills than we kept we only kept the biggest ones.  I seemed to have the touch for the drum catching 7 while my farther-in-law only caught 1.  We loaded up and headed home around 1:30 with a big mess of fish for him.  The worm ruled the day.  Could not get many bites on crickets.  I stop even trying the crickets when I had a small piece of worm left on my hook and decided to add a cricket.  I got a bite the first cast missed it and when I pulled my bait in the worm was gone the cricket untouched.  A small piece of crawler seemed to work best.  One thing I did notice that all the different fish we caught we never caught a little bass.  I for sure thought we would have caught a couple little 6 to 7 inchers.  Until next time.  TIGHT LINES!!!

[Dkman]

Thanks for the great report. I need to get my little nephew up there and give them a try.

[lundone]

Thanks for the report.  Bluegill is my favorite eating fish and I enjoy catching them but as Lmt Out says they come as a bonus when walleye fishing so I don't target them.  It is good to know how to do so tho.  Hope your father-in-law enjoys them.

[redshad]

Yes Dkman it is a great way to get kids excited about fishing.