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Big Bluegill? PICS INSIDE

40K views 176 replies 91 participants last post by  HoustonKid 
#1 ·
Hey everyone I'm from San Diego and have checked your site out for a while. Just wondering what is the avg bluegill you catch and at what size do you consider a bluegill to be big? Any 2 pounders or a solid amount of 1.5. Alot of times when I look at lakes in the Texas area I see see records of less than a pound. So that made me curious to know our crappie bluegill and redear sunfish are bigger than yours on avg. Here are some pics of my personal catches. Also posted some in the catfish lounge.

 
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#34 ·
Dang Russ, looks like you got it goin on. I have seen some 2 lb. bluegills here on the north side of Houston. Can't tell anyone exactly where or I would have to kill em. Know what I mean? Sure you do. But again that was a bunch of years back. That pond probably has a subdivision on top of it now. LOL

Great pics dude.

Byron
 
#52 ·
Big BG

The standard I use is 10 inches....over 10 honest inches is a really nice BG. Looks like you have some copper nose BG there as well as red ears. The copper nose originally came to Texas from Florida and I prefer them myself over native BG.

Any idea how you got copper nose in SD?
 
#53 ·
The standard I use is 10 inches....over 10 honest inches is a really nice BG. Looks like you have some copper nose BG there as well as red ears. The copper nose originally came to Texas from Florida and I prefer them myself over native BG.

Any idea how you got copper nose in SD?
Larry Bottroff Retired marine biologist for the city of sd brought florida bluegill here. I have not known them as copper nose but I do know they are from florida.
 
#61 ·
Channel Catfish: Chicken Liver, Beef Liver, Mackeral covered in my own secret sauce (soon to be on shelves)

Big Blue Catfish: Mackeral Head covered in my sauce.

Bluegill: Meal Worms, Night Crawlers, Corn. I have to say 2 meal worms on a size 8 hook works best for me but many swear by wax worms.

Crappie: John Deere colored mini Jigs tipped with crappie nibbles that you can find at wal-mart.

Bass: Spinner Baits, Crank Baits, Jigs, Nightcrawlers.

Carp: Corn although I only target carp if I'm bored.

Keep in mind our structure and enviornment is much different than in Texas. Much more depth, alot of big bluegill are caught in 30-60 feet of water and alot of times even deeper. Big blue cats approx 90 feet of water but often come up shallow in the grass of our lakes to cool off during the summer. Also we don't have things like Lilly Pads and alot of Frogs (although frogs do work well in the morning for bass here). You won't see a bunch of tree stumps in our lakes as this is really an arid desert climate advertised as tropical... which is why you will never hear of a hurricane approaching or hitting San Diego UNLESS its an El Nino year. Then you will see some truly EPIC fishing in San Diego.
 
#62 ·
From an Article link at the bottom as well as all the Freshwater Records for California.

There's only a small group of anglers that fish for the biggest catfish in Southern California, but catfish greater than 50 pounds are readily available to anglers targeting a handful of lakes. Southern California yields the state's largest catfish. The state record -- a 101-pound blue cat -- was taken from San Vicente Reservoir in 2000.

Many die-hard anglers are looking to raise the bar. Few experts think the record will stand much longer.

Although hooking and landing a monster catfish isn't easy, it can be easy to predict where the next state-record fish will be caught. In fact, several fish larger than state records have been caught and broken off near the boat or measured by state agencies.

In 1998, the California Department of Fish and Game, while electrofishing Otay Reservoir, shocked a catfish they estimated to be 110 pounds. That fish was measured and released, and it hasn't been caught or reported dead, so chances are it's larger than 130 pounds now.

Keep in mind, the state-record catch was released back into San Vicente. That fish was stocked as a 2-year-old in 1985 when it weighed 1-3 pounds. That fish was growing roughly six pounds a year, which puts it at more
than 120 pounds now. Experts believe there are other catfish from that same plant that are close to 150 pounds.

Southern California seems sure to yield the next record catfish. Many big-cat specialists believe that fish may be caught before spring. January through March is often an ideal time to catch blue cats.

"We know where the next state record is," said Ronson Smothers, inventor of Catmando catfish baits and former state record-holder.

Blue catfish require several decades to reach 100 pounds. Most of the fish that can contend for a record stem from plants that took place in the 1970s and early '80s. It's important to remember that these fish are a limited resource. Once they are stocked in these reservoirs, they don't reproduce. So anglers are asked to release these enormous fish so the population can be preserved.

As a rule, blue cats greater than 20 pounds don't bother with small meals. They eat mostly fish. To maintain a population of blues, most lakes have trout and bluegill on which the catfish can feed. Large catfish don't have a problem eating stocked trout or slurping bluegill from inside tules.

http://www.katmasters.com/news/a16.html

http://nrm.dfg.ca.gov/AnglingRecords/Default.aspx
 
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