Fall Fishing

AtticaFish

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Water temps are really coming down, had a few freeze/frosts and feeling like Fall. Haven't been able to connect with any walleye yet, but the bluegill at my hometown reservoir are starting to show up in their late season area they seem to come back to each year. I usually can catch them all the way up into early ice season. By about mid ice, they scatter out to places i have not pegged down yet.

Anyway, got out today around 1:00 to 4:00 and found a few. Got one 9" bluegill and even stuck a 12" crappie. All of the gills are nice and thick.

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The sunfish family is always tough for me to figure out the sub-species. Been catching a few of these, but only for the last 2 years out of this reservoir. Used to catch a bunch or green sunfish here, but these look different. Have the big mouth like the green sunnies, but are much larger. This one went 8". Not sure if they are a hybrid or what.

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Hawnjigs

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Mar 23, 2010
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Ogallala, NE
Your patience is commendable, 15" is my minimum clean to eat size - ie: just one.

Been waiting patiently and enduring skunk forays for a Fall walleye & wiper shoreline bite on the Mac and just found out there is none! Seems shallow baitfish are a Spring - early Summer occurrence, otherwise predators & prey are out in deeper water.

Maybe vert jig or deep troll off the yak?
 

AtticaFish

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Forgot to mention the tools........ all but 2 of the fish were caught on a yellow/orange 1/32 thread neck kip tail jig tipped with waxworms. Had another rod out with just a hunk of work on a jighead and that got very few bites. Tried the kip jig with no meat tip and couldn't get any bites so just stuck with hanging the meat on.

Hawnjigs - have quite a bit of patience with cleaning the bluegill and small yellow perch, because they taste so dang good! I would say they are a hands down winner over walleye when it come to just taste. Those walleye sure are fun though. The walleye shoreline bite is picking up here, or a least lots of talk on the Ohio forum about it. Talk of guys getting quite a few steelhead from the breakwalls over near Cleveland too. I was out on (cold) Friday night at Willard reservoir and watched a young kid catch a really nice one. I was skunked with the walleye but did catch 2 bass. One of the bass was about as big a bass as i have ever caught. Tis the season to begin freezing fingers off! I keep thinking about getting out in my kayak and trying to find the walleye vertically, but have yet to follow through with that thought. The walleye come up so tight to shore at dark during the fall, that i could be wasting my time. They may still be out a little farther..... but they will be coming within casting distance soon.
 

Lost Pole

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Nov 11, 2010
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Pearl River, LA.
Way to dig at em Russ. Nice fish and a great bowl of meat. The lastn is a sunny I catch regularly on big 1/8 oz jigs, like most others, but can't put a name to it other than "food".
Dunno bout freezing fingers off, but I'm ready for the cold HERE.
Even makes my all around spirits higher. I paddled three miles Sunday.....,
I've decided my paddling days are done.



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AtticaFish

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Fatman - These first cold blast means it is time to get out when the sun is shining and you will find the bigger bluegill right back where they were in the spring. Trust me, have learned the lessons over quite a few years now. Look in the same places you find them in the spring spawning, but the closest place where the bottom drops out. For me it means the difference of casting out 15 feet to spawning beds in the Spring...... to casting out 30 feet to the deeper water. And they come back each year. I will brave it out casting in the cold wind, rain and snow because i know that sooner rather than later i will have to be taking out my ice cutting gear which seems to get proportionally heavier as i get older.

Lost Pole - That paddling kicks my butt now a days. Luckily most of my local waters are round or square or odd man made shapes and do not often require long distance treks except for walking the bank. I can still do that. 3 mile paddle on open (still) water might make me miss Monday morning work. ha! You need to come up here........ plenty of cool LOW HUMIDITY air to go around. Bluegill and perch too, but you will have to teach me how to catch more than one of those damn crappie at a time.
 

AllenOK

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Oct 27, 2014
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Jackson, MI
I've caught a lot of BG x GS Hybrids. That fish isn't one of them. Pumpkinseed, or a Seed x GS Hybrid, most likely.

Darn sunnies will interbreed so much, that by the time you get to F3 and later generations, you need to be a Fisheries Biologist with genetic testing equipment to figure out just how many species are represented in one fish.....
 
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