Thanks so much! I've got a bunch in the hopper and working on several more with some biologists and more to really dive deep into what they eat, why the move where they do and more. So be a lot of cool stuff coming. Been hammering them this fall already and having a lot of fun catching 9 inch gills consistently. I haven't had one over 10 since May. But hoping that changes soon.
“Fish like one’s always looking”. I try to think about it the same way. I can fish for hours without a bite, and with few exceptions, I anticipate a bite with most every cast. Probably means I’m insane😂
Thanks man! I really appreciate that! I've got a bunch in the hopper and will get a bunch more. My goal is to elevate panfish with much better content.
@@jason-sealockfollow @FishAnything if you haven’t already! I love ultralight myself. I have thought about getting a BFS, but man I love spinning reels.
New subscriber here, great info/video, thank you!! Over the past 3 years or so I too have also fallen in love with ultra light panfishing. I fish mostly neighborhood and public ponds. I only live 20 minutes from Lake Norman in NC but the public fishing areas are limited and very pressured so I normally stay at the local ponds close to home. I have had great days fishing the Zman micro finesse baits this past year. For micro swim baits the Berkley 2" power swimmer and the Eurotackle 2" B-Vibe have caught me a ton of fish this past year. Both of them are nowhere as durable as Zman products but they flat out catch fish, lots of bass as well. My go to baits when the bite is tough are the Leland Trout & Crappie magnets, tipping the jig with a Berkley crappie nibble is money!!! Float and fly with a small hair jig is also another favorite of mine, especially in the cold water months. Looking forward to your future videos.
Thanks for subscribing. I've got a lot coming and am happy to be working with some of the top biologists doing thesis work around panfish like red ear. Really excited to see what we can uncover. I have a lot of good stuff in the hopper already. I too love to fish small waters. I mostly fish Kentucky Lake but I have small lakes in Missouri, Illinois, Arkansas and Tennessee that I try to hit regularly throughout the year just to expand and fine tune what I learn about panfish in a variety of places and conditions. The more you can make stuff work in a lot of places the more you find it works everywhere.
That has been one of my staples for years. I love them and they are dynamite for gills and shellcrackers too. The tails tear off pretty easily. I talk about all my favorite baits here: currentfish.substack.com/p/7-best-panfish-lures-to-catch-big
The Curado BFS is an okay reel. There are better options though depending on budget. The Tsurinoya Ultra Wolf or Genius are both good and a better price but have to find them online usually. I am using a Shimano Calcutta Conquest BFS reel which is very pricey but hands down the best BFS reel in my opinion. I get mine from Digitaka (straight from Japan). The rod is a Crony Stream rod. They are best quality rods out of China. They are JDM quality buy CDM made. They make rods that have a ton of sensitivity and very light actions for panfish and trout.
Thanks bud! I got a bunch of these shot. I shot this one last fall. That was my first fall with the micro finesse baits from Z-Man. Now I've fished a full year and am releasing a bunch of these videos now. I have a bunch of winter deep vidoes also. And a bunch of shallow videos too. So will be pouring them out now here and through the newsletter. -Jason
so i always get those random casting knots when I use spinning gear. I close the bail with my hands and try to make sure I'm not reelin up slack. does the 4 pound line make a diff on that? for panfish I've tried 6# and braid to leader
@@castandchill it’s the nature of spinning gear unfortunately. Lighter lines tend to be more susceptible to twist. Most of the twist comes in from either fish pulling a lot of drag or by reeling in lures fast that are fouled and they spin the line really hard. I try to stay in the habit of closing the bail, pulling my line tight and then retrieving slowly. Also every so often, I will make a long cast pinch the line to my rod with my off hand and reel the bait back in with the line pinched tightly. Doing this can unspin your line. You will notice if you have a lot of twist in your line if when your lure gets in, it is spinning around quickly (uncoiling the twist). It’s also why I use BFS some of the time.
ive been chasing them on ky lake mid and south sections since i quit bass fishing 15 years ago. i have logs that i kept over the years and pretty much fish the same types of area in your video. late winter theyll feed on the blood worm larvae before spring hatch moving from deeper water around bluffs . keep in mind those big bull bluegill can take years to grow. remove too many of them out of a colony and youll upset the size structure of the colony. ask doug wynn about catching cooler fulls of big gills and then they seem to disappear the next couple of years. the old way of thinking of keeping the larger fish and releasing the smaller fish is quite the opposite in bluegill biology. great content and articles, i enjoy them.
@@knowitallfishing6990 thanks! Great insight in your comment! Keep in mind too that bluegills only live 5-6 years on Ky Lake. Red ear live 12-13 years. So Im a lot more protective of big red ears as a big bluegill won’t live much longer here. I’m more of keep big ones sparingly and mostly those midsize ones. I mostly keep those 8-inchers and let all the over 8s go. And I usually only keep 12 -15 when if any at all because that feeds the wife and I plenty.
@ bluegills grow an inch per year. shellcrackers can be 9" in like 3 years. it takes a bluegill on average 5-7 years to become sexually mature, if there is a good population of bull bluegills to keep the pecking order of the colony in check. if not theyll become sexually mature in a year or two and will become stunted. i have cracked and stained some oliths on south ky lake and so far 8" fish are averaging about 6-7 years of growth. i do the same, i try to keep 8" or midsize with a few 6-7 " ones thrown in. anything over 9" i release back on ky lake. the other lakes i fish i try to do the same but they also have a creel limit on bluegill as well.
@@knowitallfishing6990 That's awesome you check out otoliths. Our local fisheries biologists said they find most of the population never makes it passed 9 inches. And why you almost never see 10 inchers on Kentucky Lake because they age out before they reach the full potential. The way it was explained to me, bluegills will like 15 years up north but the further south you go, they live a lot less time. Their metabolism stays revved up and then apparently die earlier because of increased activity and stress on their system feeding all the time. I have caught 3 bluegills over 11 inches in the 17 years I've lived here and all three were this year. Until last year I had never caught a true 10 on Kentucky Lake. Now I have a bunch the last two years. But I'm hunting big ones more now than I used to as much of my time was spent bass fishing except for spawning season. But I treasure them more now because guys like you and I understand the deck is stacked against them to get to trophy size for sheer lack of time and and the massive biomass they contend with. Do you fish for them in the winter? I find dozens of schools of thousands of bluegills on the main river. I assure you anglers are not hurting the population. They just don't grow here like they do in other places, but I feel like the bluegill biomass has improved dramatically over the last 6 years in the down cycle of bass and other fish on the lake. It seems like we never had the amount of bigger ones we have now. But be interested to see if you've seen the same thing on the south end. I'm working with Murray State and local biologists to share intel back and forth on diet and migrations as well.
Glad to see you here!! Bluegills and crappie are my favorite and your wealth of knowledge is great to see, especially with the videos!
Thanks so much! I've got a bunch in the hopper and working on several more with some biologists and more to really dive deep into what they eat, why the move where they do and more. So be a lot of cool stuff coming. Been hammering them this fall already and having a lot of fun catching 9 inch gills consistently. I haven't had one over 10 since May. But hoping that changes soon.
@jason-sealock Wow, that sounds awesome!! Looking forward to more videos for sure!! Awesome to hear your fall is going great!!🙌🏻 It's snowing here 😆
“Fish like one’s always looking”. I try to think about it the same way. I can fish for hours without a bite, and with few exceptions, I anticipate a bite with most every cast. Probably means I’m insane😂
Only as insane as the rest of us! 🤣
Very first video of yours that I have come across. And MAN! SUB’d!
Excited to check out your other videos!
Thanks man! I really appreciate that! I've got a bunch in the hopper and will get a bunch more. My goal is to elevate panfish with much better content.
@@jason-sealockfollow @FishAnything if you haven’t already!
I love ultralight myself. I have thought about getting a BFS, but man I love spinning reels.
New subscriber here, great info/video, thank you!! Over the past 3 years or so I too have also fallen in love with ultra light panfishing. I fish mostly neighborhood and public ponds. I only live 20 minutes from Lake Norman in NC but the public fishing areas are limited and very pressured so I normally stay at the local ponds close to home. I have had great days fishing the Zman micro finesse baits this past year. For micro swim baits the Berkley 2" power swimmer and the Eurotackle 2" B-Vibe have caught me a ton of fish this past year. Both of them are nowhere as durable as Zman products but they flat out catch fish, lots of bass as well. My go to baits when the bite is tough are the Leland Trout & Crappie magnets, tipping the jig with a Berkley crappie nibble is money!!! Float and fly with a small hair jig is also another favorite of mine, especially in the cold water months. Looking forward to your future videos.
Thanks for subscribing. I've got a lot coming and am happy to be working with some of the top biologists doing thesis work around panfish like red ear. Really excited to see what we can uncover. I have a lot of good stuff in the hopper already. I too love to fish small waters. I mostly fish Kentucky Lake but I have small lakes in Missouri, Illinois, Arkansas and Tennessee that I try to hit regularly throughout the year just to expand and fine tune what I learn about panfish in a variety of places and conditions. The more you can make stuff work in a lot of places the more you find it works everywhere.
I’ve been using a lot of Charlie brewer slider plastics this year. Really like their small paddle tails.
That has been one of my staples for years. I love them and they are dynamite for gills and shellcrackers too. The tails tear off pretty easily. I talk about all my favorite baits here: currentfish.substack.com/p/7-best-panfish-lures-to-catch-big
What BFS reels were you using been thinking about getting one look at a Shimano Curado at Fast Eddies
The Curado BFS is an okay reel. There are better options though depending on budget. The Tsurinoya Ultra Wolf or Genius are both good and a better price but have to find them online usually. I am using a Shimano Calcutta Conquest BFS reel which is very pricey but hands down the best BFS reel in my opinion. I get mine from Digitaka (straight from Japan). The rod is a Crony Stream rod. They are best quality rods out of China. They are JDM quality buy CDM made. They make rods that have a ton of sensitivity and very light actions for panfish and trout.
@ thanks Jason I’ll look them up.
What's better than years of JS articles? 34 minutes of video'd info. JB
Thanks bud! I got a bunch of these shot. I shot this one last fall. That was my first fall with the micro finesse baits from Z-Man. Now I've fished a full year and am releasing a bunch of these videos now. I have a bunch of winter deep vidoes also. And a bunch of shallow videos too. So will be pouring them out now here and through the newsletter. -Jason
so i always get those random casting knots when I use spinning gear. I close the bail with my hands and try to make sure I'm not reelin up slack. does the 4 pound line make a diff on that? for panfish I've tried 6# and braid to leader
@@castandchill it’s the nature of spinning gear unfortunately. Lighter lines tend to be more susceptible to twist. Most of the twist comes in from either fish pulling a lot of drag or by reeling in lures fast that are fouled and they spin the line really hard.
I try to stay in the habit of closing the bail, pulling my line tight and then retrieving slowly. Also every so often, I will make a long cast pinch the line to my rod with my off hand and reel the bait back in with the line pinched tightly. Doing this can unspin your line. You will notice if you have a lot of twist in your line if when your lure gets in, it is spinning around quickly (uncoiling the twist). It’s also why I use BFS some of the time.
What was that reel you was using for that Ned rig type lure?
It's a Shimano Calcutta Conquest BFS. Made to throw light lures with a shallower spool and different gearing.
ive been chasing them on ky lake mid and south sections since i quit bass fishing 15 years ago. i have logs that i kept over the years and pretty much fish the same types of area in your video. late winter theyll feed on the blood worm larvae before spring hatch moving from deeper water around bluffs . keep in mind those big bull bluegill can take years to grow. remove too many of them out of a colony and youll upset the size structure of the colony. ask doug wynn about catching cooler fulls of big gills and then they seem to disappear the next couple of years. the old way of thinking of keeping the larger fish and releasing the smaller fish is quite the opposite in bluegill biology.
great content and articles, i enjoy them.
@@knowitallfishing6990 thanks! Great insight in your comment! Keep in mind too that bluegills only live 5-6 years on Ky Lake. Red ear live 12-13 years. So Im a lot more protective of big red ears as a big bluegill won’t live much longer here.
I’m more of keep big ones sparingly and mostly those midsize ones. I mostly keep those 8-inchers and let all the over 8s go. And I usually only keep 12 -15 when if any at all because that feeds the wife and I plenty.
@
bluegills grow an inch per year. shellcrackers can be 9" in like 3 years. it takes a bluegill on average 5-7 years to become sexually mature, if there is a good population of bull bluegills to keep the pecking order of the colony in check. if not theyll become sexually mature in a year or two and will become stunted. i have cracked and stained some oliths on south ky lake and so far 8" fish are averaging about 6-7 years of growth.
i do the same, i try to keep 8" or midsize with a few 6-7 " ones thrown in. anything over 9" i release back on ky lake. the other lakes i fish i try to do the same but they also have a creel limit on bluegill as well.
@@knowitallfishing6990 That's awesome you check out otoliths. Our local fisheries biologists said they find most of the population never makes it passed 9 inches. And why you almost never see 10 inchers on Kentucky Lake because they age out before they reach the full potential. The way it was explained to me, bluegills will like 15 years up north but the further south you go, they live a lot less time. Their metabolism stays revved up and then apparently die earlier because of increased activity and stress on their system feeding all the time.
I have caught 3 bluegills over 11 inches in the 17 years I've lived here and all three were this year. Until last year I had never caught a true 10 on Kentucky Lake. Now I have a bunch the last two years. But I'm hunting big ones more now than I used to as much of my time was spent bass fishing except for spawning season.
But I treasure them more now because guys like you and I understand the deck is stacked against them to get to trophy size for sheer lack of time and and the massive biomass they contend with. Do you fish for them in the winter? I find dozens of schools of thousands of bluegills on the main river. I assure you anglers are not hurting the population. They just don't grow here like they do in other places, but I feel like the bluegill biomass has improved dramatically over the last 6 years in the down cycle of bass and other fish on the lake. It seems like we never had the amount of bigger ones we have now. But be interested to see if you've seen the same thing on the south end. I'm working with Murray State and local biologists to share intel back and forth on diet and migrations as well.