Bella Vista bream trip

[Quillback]

Ham made the trip over from Mountain Home today and we were targeting bream.  We fished banker's hours, from 0830 until around 5 PM.  We mostly fished red worms on drop shot rigs, we threw a few bass lures around, but the bass weren't cooperating so we pretty much stuck to pan fishing.  We caught somewhere in the neighborhood of 60 bream, mostly bluegills but we did get a few very nice redears.  Ham caught a redear that measured 11.5 inches and I think we caught another 4 that were in the 10-11 inch range.  Bluegill were all in the 6-8 inch range, but Ham again had big honors with a bluegill that unfortunately we did not measure, but it might have made 10 inches, it was a really nice gill.  Ham did get a picture of it.

I kept about 8 gills and one redear.  

@Johnsfolly, @ZigJigman, @BilletHead

One of those jumbo redear:

A few other species:

 

Ham will add some other pics when he gets a chance, he's probably still driving right about now.

 

[Johnsfolly]

 Sounds like a great trip QB. I did mention to Ham not to give you too hard of a time for last night's game. I did see a couple of nice redear photos. So can't wait for Ham to post some more. Nice little toothy guy and cat.

[JestersHK]

Nice QB.  Sounds like a great day on the water.  So at what point during the day did Ham finally throw a jig lol?  

[Ham]

Jeff is being far too humble. He handed me my _ _ _ all day. I was plainly not prepared for the bite to be that sensitive. I threw a Power Bait Honey Worm on a down shot rig. I never got a look on it. Not a whiff. Jeff had caught 5 fish before I switched to worms and he caught several more before I caught my first fish.

when I switched to worms, it would have served me well to have observed Jeff’s rigging and retrieve closely. I tried to do it my way and that cost me a lot of fish most likely. I eventually got with the program and started catching a few.

I was limited to Bluegill and Red Ears. Jeff caught just about everything that swims in the lake. 

I also failed to catch a fish or get a bite on a Zig Jig and my little swim Bait That I like.

I did throw a full size down shot rig and I think I got a bump on that.

I brought way too much stuff and never tried any of it for very long because Jeff was catching fish like clockwork all day long. I felt I needed to be doing something that gave me some kind of a chance however small it may be.

the size of the fish we caught was very impressive. I caught the largest Red Ears I have ever caught and one of the largest Bluegill I have ever caught. We caught a lot of really nice Blue Gill. I had one that was too small to keep and I think Jeff had a 1/2 dozen too small to keep. I caught 32 fish. I’d bet Jeff almost caught twice as many as I did. 

I really appreciate Jeff taking a kid fishing today. He was a great host and did everything he could to help me catch a few. Hopefully, I’ll get to go over there again one of these days. 

Pics to follow. 

[Ham]

I know they get bigger and this guy made me really want to catch a Giant one. 

[Ham]

Jeff caught at least 4 LMB. 

[Ham]

this Blue Gill was a Giant. I apparently bumped my head real hard and as a result took a crap photo. No one is more upset about this than me. 

[Ham]

We had 4 really large Red Ears and a couple more pretty nice ones. 

Thanks Again Jeff for sharing your spots with me. 

[Quillback]

That bluegill Ham caught was really a big one, much bigger than any of the other gills we caught.  Interesting coloration too, greenish/blue head and had an overall kind of blue look to it, colors didn't quite come through on the photo.  

[Devan S.]

Awesome time. Love those big bream.