THE BLUEGILL PAGE
An Introduction page to this boat
and what it is about
Click on me to see some relatives  (Bluegills) pictures

MR. GILL The Star of the page   aways being chased by these guys-------------->

The Grumpy Bunch

                About Me
                I have lived here most of my life( I can't say all of my life because I have a ways to
                go  yet ). I use to be located in Racine which is in the S.E. part of the state on the shores
                of Lake  Michigan. I am 65 (old fart) and a proud father of 2 sons and
                one daughter and have 2 grandchildren. I am a free lance design engineer (semi
                retired) and own U.S Patent No. 5,515,838  which is a high quality high tech
                paintball gun (Hell I have to gloat a little bit). Now this issuppose to be a fun page so
                don't be surprised by what you see here.

2. Every thing is related, the size of the fish, water depth, weed height and growth. And as you fish deeper you will find that the size of the bluegills you will catch is directly related to the depth of water in most lakes.

3. Spring time fish with smaller live bait on a small hook, size 10-12 . Wax worms are usaully the prefered bait here or small red worms. A small jig will work  also 1/32 - 1 /16 oz. using a small bobber work  close to shore in 1 to 3 ft. of water. larger gills will be found in a little deeper water up to 7-10 ft. in the same area as you find the smaller ones. After spawning these gills will move out from shore and seek weed cover over flats that are adjacent to deeper water. as the water warms you can start using larger bait such as pieces of nite crawlers. leeches, garden worms, grubs and etc.

4. We drift fish 90% of the time as we have found this to be the most productive.  you can cover more ground this way when searching for schools of gills. When you find them throw out a marker and make short drifts while paying attention to the movement of the school.

5. A rule! The bigger the gill the lighter the bite, sometimes you barely see the rod tip move

"LAKE GENEVA BLUEGILLS"
An Antique aticle
I probably should re-do this page with a new article
on fish'n these gills. (When I am not fish'n or something)
This one has been up a few years and is getting old.
It was written originally as a introduction page and
is he only original page of this site left.

THE TRIP

Joe and Tom are going with us (you and I) this morning. We will be taking my boat today which is a 16 ft. x 74 in beam Northwoods tiller set up for drift fishing. There are  9 special rod holders on the boat which we make ourself. . From the top they look like this  (__o__)  closed  like a long loop. Basicly a  long loop on a stem. which allows the rod to set at 40 degree angle and when they bite you can immediately set the hook and lift the rod out in one action. There is graph in the back (transom mounted) and a graph in the front (thru hull). A loran (which is in for repairs) and a marine radio.(carry over from salmon fishing).

August,5,1997..We arrive in downtown Lake Geneva at 7: AM and head for the ramp. This ramp is right on the edge of a main thoroughfare and there is not any room to back up straight. We pull up parallel to the ramp and unstrap the boat and put in the worms etc. from the truck. We climb into the boat  and Joe hooks the trailer around  and down  the ramp into the water  (Joes job). As soon as the engine is in the water we start the engine and back off the trailer(15 sec.), while Tom is putting the money in the fee box.(his job). While Joe is taking the truck and trailer to the parking lot(2 blocks away) we get out the life jackets and slide them over the back of the seats. This keeps us away  from the hassel of the game warden checking us for jackets. Every thing is arranged in the boat and it is ready for fishing, lets go! Joe is back and gets on the front seat (Tom is always in the middle he's big).

We head south towards the flats (south side) which extends aways out  into the lake and has a lot of sructure on the edges. (Motors running quite well this morning) On the way we will stop and check an area that we usually do quite well on in another week or so. If the graph shows any gill concentration we will use this site for a backup location. (not a whole lot showing).  As we cross the lake we check for suspended fish in 50-75 ft. of  water (another source). A bit windy today (10-15) out of the north, this will make it a little tough on the fishing. We will start on the east end,  this is where we hit them last tuesday when we had east wind 5-10 mph. The flats are an area that is mostly 15-20 ft. of water about a 1/2 mile wide x 3/4 mile long on the south shore. The north edge is very irregular going from 20-35 ft. of  water in and out in areas from  hundred feet wide to a block wide like a bunch of short stubby fingers with  a few 25 ft underwater  islands here and there.

We are using ultra lite rods for drifting so we can see the hits. These are baited with either a  bare hook (no. 8 or 10) or a 1/32-1/16 oz. jig with a 7/16 oz. split shot about 20-24" above. We dress the hooks with a small piece of nitecrawler about  an 1" long.  This is threaded on so it hangs behind. We'll start in 35' of water and drift into 25'. We let the first line out until it stops pulling out by it'self and set the rod in the holder. The other  two rods are casted out about 30' and they are set in the holders. A few marks are showing on the graph as we start to slide up the slope. There are a few on the bottom and the rest are suspended. The first drift produces a couple of gills about 7" caught off the bottom at 28'-30'. As we get into the 25' range we get more bites but they are small.  The wind is strong  and Tom puts out the sea anchor to slow us down (Toms job...he's in the middle). Joe and Tom are getting some hits on the bottom where as we are only getting  hits at 25'. Tom gets a smallouth (15") which proceeds to tangle with 3 lines, one of his and two of Joes( a lot of lanquge here). This happens quite often because Tom likes to put  a 2" piece of crawler on one rod. 8:30 AM time for breakfast  (fried egg/bacon on rye). A full cup of coffee gets dumped on floor as Tom moves to the side of boat ( sonebody forgot the P-can). For the next couple of  hours we will work our way west with each drift over the flats.  The fish we catch are really scrapping , some of the smaller ones pull the tip almost into the water which is unlike the larger gills.We have not found any concentration of gills yet but we keep picking away at them. If we get into water shallower than 25' we catch a lot more of the Tom fish (  5-6"..Tom will keep anything if you let him) and Rockbass which fight for 5 sec. then gives up and turn into a boot. Some of the drifts are slower than others when the wind lifts up from the water but we keep the sea anchor in. We still haven't got the touch of the bottom yet like Joe and Tom  and they are getting more bites.

10:45 AM about 25 fish in the cooler on ice, as we move furthur west we drift over an area that is pretty flat (26-28') for over a block before we come into the 25' range. This yields three 7 1/2"  fish. 11:00 is the magic hr. on Lake Geneva for gills (when the sun is high enough to penetrate the deeper water). Our next drift we move 50' to the west and start in 35' of water. We drift for about 50' when two of Joes rod tips twitch, Ho! a double. One of Tom's rods repeats and at the same time our middle rod and outside rod have the same rythm. We set the hook on the outside rod with the left hand as the right hand grabs the middle rod. We set the outside rod back in it's holder and shift the other rod to our left hand. Where is the marker bouy? You find it! Tom shouts I'm busy!.Joe is laughing. We find it behind Toms huge tackle box and throw  it out the back of the boat. We have a circus going here.as the gills start to perform.  After a couple of more fish the action dies down. We catch a few nice sunfish (7 1/2-8") as we get into the 25' range. Usally at this time of day we are fishing the areas we have had the best action in thru the morning, we are lucky today. Pretty soon we have to bring in the lines as we are getting into shallower water and head back for another drift. We'll start this drift a little to the left of the previous one, the graph shows 30 plus feet of water. There's one! just as we get the bait  to the bottom. That didn't take long did it?  Haven't even set the 2nd rod in yet. we drift about 30 ft. and Tom and Joe both have one on. it quites down now as we approach the marker (too close- wind shift). Tom has one on now and it circles the marker cord, DAMMM!!! It takes a few minutes to free the cord and then we catch it DAMMM again! We have a gill on that line and he is a nice one. (8 1/2").We are coming into 25' water and Tom gets another dandy sunfish. The gills in this spot are running from 7-8"s here and some of the sunfish a hair bigger. According to the graph we are drifting north/south in 35-30 ft. of water with 26-28' of water on each side. We start another drift (compensating for dumb marker stunt) and Joe has another double and they tangle together (bad language). The action is on and off for two hour's until we decide that we have enough fish to clean.

We pull lines at 1:00 PM and head the boat home. On the way back to the landing we scout out a few spots for future use again. The landing is pretty good today, not much traffic but a lot of scenery. As Joe goes up to get the truck I start putting equipment away and storing life jackets. Tom is scouting bikini's (his job). We back the boat away from the pier as jJoe starts to make the U turn in traffic to swing the trailer into the ramp. As Joe backs the trailer into the water we power the boat part way onto the trailer then give Joe the signal to come back a little farther and we throttle up aginst the V block. We give Joe the signal and he pulls ahead. We keep the rpm up on the engine and shut it off just as the boat is lifting out of the water. Then down the street we go (we are still in the boat). This takes about 30 sec.'s if we do it right . An old fella sitting on the bench taking this all in says ; that's the way to do it!...........We love it......Joe and Tom threaten to take us home this way.