You probably don't even know the bluegill's Latin name, which is Lepomis macrochirus. I don't care what its Latin name is either, but I quote it to shame those who can Latinize a whole batch of trout-stream flies but feel a bluegill is beneath their dignity.
Even fishing in a necktie and a suede-faced vest will not dignify the pursuit of the bluegill. The only time most fly fishermen discuss this fish is in a democratic gesture to show they have not abandoned the homespun roots of their bucolic youth, and to show they were good ole boys and worm soakers at heart before they saw the light. Then they go back to Latin-named nymphs.
One day, when my wife, Debie, and I were going bluegill fishing with a favorite Orvis bamboo rod (sometimes she uses a Jenkins), I asked her why she was using fine bamboo on bream and could have bitten my tongue an instant after asking. I closed my eyes and winced, because I could feel the answer coming.
This, she said, is a nice little rod that takes a five-weight line. Why, she asked, shouldn't it feel as good casting a #10 nymph in a Florida bonnet pocket as it does casting a #10 nymph in the Letort or the Firehole? Just because a bluegill is supposed to be some kind of fishy redneck is no reason it has to be snatched with a canepole, she proclaimed. "If bluegills are so simple to catch, why in hell can't you catch them every time you try?"
Debie's use of the word hell is her final plateau of emphasis. I went back to the house and got my Orvis and found it felt much the same as it had the last time I fished for trout. The next time we fished for panfish, I borrowed her Jenkins for variety.
Nothing is perfect. Bluegills don't get very big. Some writers, however, approach them with a literary magnifying glass and emphasize their ferocity. The term "bull bluegill" is not really fitting, but it's supposed to appeal to people who feel "hawg" must be applied to all black bass over three pounds. Frankly, I'm not afraid of the biggest damned bluegill in the world, and will play it on the lightest rod I own.
The fly rod isn't really the best means of taking the biggest bream, but isn't the best means for the biggest salmon or sailfish either. I guess I've caught thousands of trout that weighed about the same. It would be better if bluegills got bigger than they do, but I'm grateful for them as they are. Most fishermen think of bluegills when they think of panfish, but there are plenty of others.
The best bluegill fly Debie and I use is called a "Greenie." According to the designer, it's a nymph but it comes very close to being a Woolly Worm. For that matter, some of the revered "nymph" fishermen now operating for trout would have been scorned as Woolly Worm fishermen 30 years ago. Names are important.
I met the Greenie at Lake Okeechobee in the company of its creator, Al Klemack, a guide in the Northeast before he moved to Florida. Al's pet nymph (which he didn't call Greenie) had done in some big brook trout before he took it to Okeechobee and bream.
That day I'd stupidly got involved in a fly fishing contest I supposed was for laughs but turned out to be for blood and honor. In scoring you got points for panfish up to a legal limit. You could get more points for bass, with the larger ones adding up quickly. Klemack was guiding for me and I was laying little popping bugs over deep but barely visible bluegill beds, not having much luck in taking a quick bream limit.
Klemack kept talking about his nymph. I fluffed him off politely for a while but finally put one on in the interest of public relations in the skiff. When I cast the nymph over the beds and counted long enough for it to reach the right depth, I got a bluegill on every cast. I handled the bluegill limit of 25 in short order by using two rods, with Al unhooking and releasing fish while I kept casting. After that, I put on a big popping bug and we went bass fishing. Later, a guy named Milt Culp borrowed some of the nymphs from us and told us the "Greenies" worked fine. The name stuck.
We catch bluegills the year round in Florida but in spring things really pick up and May is best of all. During the day we do better with wets fished around lily pads and other borders where we find the fish holding three or more feet down. During the last two hours before sundown, we usually switch to bugs or rubber spiders. Our best fishing time usually arrives in the half-hour before sunset and the half-hour after, when the barred owls are fussing and the herons are heading home to roost.
There is a school of angling literature that condescends in discussing panfishing, referring to grade-schoolers using cane poles and worms. This literature says you can get a good start fishing for panfish. I expect to finish with them.
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