Dropshotting for Bluegills During the Summer
Have you tried dropshotting for bluegills? If not, you’re missing out!
In the summertime, one critter that doesn’t get a lot of attention is the bluegill.
It seems like after the spawn, people lose their focus on catching these magnificent fish, and today, Dan and I are going to talk about catching mid-summer bluegills.
We’re fishing a lake where the fish are starting to stack up on the weed edge, so we’re going to employ a technique that’s not often used for panfish, but we’ll show you why it’s such a great way to catch these big monsters. We’re driving around and you can see with the traditional 2D sonar that we are on the weed edge. If you look very closely you’ll see right on the edge of the weeds are some little white dots – those are probably three really nice bluegills. That’s exactly the kind of stuff we’re looking for.
The thing with fishing these panfish is boat control can be pretty darn important, because you can’t be too far off the edge. Oftentimes, when you’re panfishing, you’re fishing your bait very slowly and the Spot-Lock feature we’ve got on here is just ideal. When someone catches a fish, I just push a button, we anchor in, and we can both just sit and beat on that hole for a long time.
What we are using to catch these bluegills is a technique that’s been popularized in bass fishing, however it’s an incredible delivery system for just about any bait, softbait or livebait. It’s the dropshot, in this case, the VMC Spinshot.
Most of the time, you hear about dropshotting and bass fishing and it is a very effective way to catch bass, but we also use this technique for walleye fishing and panfishing. On the end of a dropshot, you can fish a lot of different stuff, bluegills are one of those critters where it just pays to have livebait. Right now, the bite seems to be really hot on a leech, but many times, if they’re super aggressive and you get the right conditions, you can get them on soft plastic.
I always have a lot of soft plastics in the boat. A few of my favorites are a 1.5 inch Big Bite tube. I love that baby and for whatever reason. The yellow and chartreuse has always been good for me. A little cricket profile works well, too. Of course gills love the crickets/grasshopper style. Even little minnow profiles can get the attention of a big bluegills, too. So when it comes to dropshotting, really anything that you put on a jig works.
Dropshotting for bluegills is an excellent tactic you need to try this summer!
