Smell your way to Bedding Blue Gills

Smell your way to Bedding Blue Gills

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I grew up living on the lake during the summer vacations and weekends. I slept next to the window 70 ft away from the lake edge. During times when I awoke during the late spring and summer days I would be hit with that particular scent… those same times I would notice bedding gills sometimes many hundreds in numbers spawning in the shallows in front of our sea wall.

The lake was near eutrophic in identity with muck approaching several feet in thickness… our cottage shore line was kept free of muck by constant swimming and boating use as well as maintenance with raking. The bluegills apparently loved it bedding on the firm sand bottom. So through the years I always associated the smell with spawning gills … but never knew the reason.

Recently through some digging and research I learned it is a pheromone released by male and female bluegills to attract others to the colony to spawn.

“Moreover, large bluegills tend to spawn first, occupyingthe best areas. ... Because this species nests in colonies, there may also besome involvement of pheromones from males and females that draws more fish tothe colony, where over 100 adults may be in various phases of the spawn.” …In-Fisherman Mag

It is the pheromones being released into the water that some of us smell… but many of us fail to recognize the odor or even detect it.

Many times I’ll be motoring out on the lake and will detect the scent… following wind direction source to the shoreline lead me right to them.

I can smell it and hound down the areas of the spawning gills. If you know your lakes like I know mine… you know where these potential areas are and they vary slightly from season to season. I do perimeter checks… visual checks with the outboard motor close to shore often on my BOW during the fishing Lull.Periods during the day… visually as well as side scan imaging. I feel confident in finding the areas that need to be fished.

To add I believe there is a right way to fish a spawning area… if you visually spot nests with single male B.Gills guarding it’s center… the big females are just a short distance away… usually on the 8-10’ weedy flats or on the first breakline to deeper water. These are the fish to target while leaving the big bulls to finish the process of passing on the large fish gene to future generations.

Fishing the beds is literally biting the hand that feeds you. Future generations will thank you not too!

So when you are out this spring search the scent… it’s curious many I have taken fishing aren’t able to recognize it.

Good Fishing Everyone

check me out on YouTube... plenty of tips and vids...
https://www.youtube.com/user/kensobanski

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Picture from PondBoss.Com
quote from In-Fisherman Magazine