Big M 7.28-8.1

[bferg]

Spent a few days at a cabin near Big M.  This was a family trip so my fishing hours were limited but I was able to get out every morning (but only for a couple hours each time).  Each day I tried something different and each way I tried catching fish, I caught a few- with one big exception:  the top water bite continues to be socially distanced from me.  I just can't find a topwater bite at Beaver or on TR.  

First night we fished gravel points- I was switching between a deep crank bait (spro Little John Super DD), a jig, and a magnum trick worm on a swing jig- caught a few spots on the trick worm.  Marked a ton of fish, could not get much to bite...  couldn't figure out why until one of them finally went after the trick worm and I felt the thump thump thump and figured out it was a huge school of blue gill.  (more on this later).

Next morning I went out with a swimbait and a drop shot and caught a few spots on the Morning Dawn robo worm.  Again, was marking huge school of fish, again they were blue gills.  Caught some spots on the drop shot among the gills.  

On Thursday AM we went out looking to spoon some fish off of deep docks.  Found some fish on the end of docks- fish were suspended at 20 FOW over 60 FOW.   Threw the River2Sea flutter spoon at them and we caught quite a few- larger spots, a smallie, and some LM.  Wish we could have run this pattern more because we caught more quality fish this way than anything else.  But the docks had to be DEEP.  Found a few fish at the ends of docks in 30 FOW that we caught on the spoon and a few on a drop shot there as well.  Quality wasn't as good as the deeper docks. 

Finally, my buddy and I each took our youngest kids out with some crawlers and set them up with a drop shot.  We caught blue gills until the rain ran us off the lake.  From what I saw this week, pretty much any gravel run out in 18-23 feet of water you will find huge schools of jumbo gills.  In the middle of the chaos of two kids catching fish after fish, my daughter reels up a 20+ inch Walter.  Of course I didn't have the net out, and she didn't know what to do, and he was saved from the grill this time.  But combine that with Babler's report from today and you get the idea.  Great way to take a kid fishing right now- easy and I think you can catch those gills until you get bored with it.  

[Bill Babler]

Nice report.  Gills are just thick and really in all stages of the water column over the entire lake.   Chris Tetrick said they are simply just thick up the James too.   All those guys wanting them ought to be out and about right now filleting and scaling.  We had a couple yesterday I could not get my hand around.  Tremendous size.

 

[Quillback]

Thanks for the update on the gills, I have a few things to take care of, but hope to be on the water later this week.  Going to be bringing some redworms and maybe some crawlers too.   

Do any of you get find any redears around those gills?

[Devan S.]

Does the gill thing not happen over at Beaver?