I fish a 55 acre lake that is loaded with crappie,blue gill and big bass. I have never tried to fish a swim bait. I would think one would work great here. My questions are

1.What brand has worked best for you guys?

2.What size?

3.I'm thinking  a blue gill swim bait would work best, but is there a certain time of year that would work better?

Thanks in advance.

there are many options. I'm a firm believer that you get what you pay for when it comes to swim baits. In my opinion the Matt lures Hard Blue Gill is the best gill swim bait available. A much cheaper option would be soft swim baits such as Basstrix and Berkly in blue gill patterns. Good luck.

Definitely Matts hard gill or a cheaper option would be the Tylure Kicker sunfish. Both are great bluegill swimbaits but if you have the money, go for the Matts Hard Gill.

Mattlures bluegills are top notch and really realistic looking

high end

little cheaper

there are a lot of makers to chose from, just don't buy one of these 

koppers seems prety good too!!!

koppers seems prety good too!!!

I love the live target baits, I need to get some of the bluegill before spring

What would be a good set up to throw the Mattlures on? What line and rod?

What would be a good set up to throw the Mattlures on? What line and rod?

This rod

http://www.***.com/descpageRDCOKUMA-OGSBBR.html

This reel

http://www.***.com/descpageRLCSHIMANO-SCCRA.html

And line should be at least 20lb.

What would be a good set up to throw the Mattlures on? What line and rod?

I use an Okuma 7'6" H with a Shimano Cardiff 300A. Right now I'm using 20lb big game which is working just fine.

Mattlures bluegills are top notch and really realistic looking

high end

little cheaper

there are a lot of makers to chose from, just don't buy one of these

Great looking baits! Do I need to sell my house to get one?  ;D What do they cost?

Bluegill baits i use are (from highest price to lowest) Mattlures hard gill, SBI Ebbygill, baitsmith soft gill (madgill maybe?) , and giron. I tend to use the hardbaits more often than the baitsmith just because they are hard and those 3 baits cover most conditions. The mattlures is the biggest and has a nice s swimming action the ebbygill is smaller than the mattlures so i tend to use it more often and it has similar action. The giron is the smallest bait and it has a darting action (its a 2 piece bait instead of 3 like the other 2)

There are two worth fishing.

Mattlures HardGill

Mattlures Ultimate Bluegill

Mattlures bluegills are top notch and really realistic looking

high end

little cheaper

there are a lot of makers to chose from, just don't buy one of these

I have fished the middle lure, i think it was $25. It looks amazingly real.

I fish a 55 acre lake that is loaded with crappie,blue gill and big bass. I have never tried to fish a swim bait. I would think one would work great here. My questions are

1.What brand has worked best for you guys?

2.What size?

3.I'm thinking a blue gill swim bait would work best, but is there a certain time of year that would work better?

Thanks in advance.

I use Mattlures hard and soft gills for the most part. My year goes like this in general.

In the winter I use tht soft gill fished like a jig on the botom and the slow sink hard bluegill around suspended fish that will hit shallow jerkbaits. I can fish his hard gill like a jerkbait after it is counted down since it has a true slow sink and has a nice action when twitched after a pause.

In spring during the prespawn I use the hard crappie around crappie that are on beds and the hard bluegill off shore as a jerkbait substitute. I will also slow roll the soft gill in deeper water.

When the bass move to spawning I use the hard slow sink bluegill fished in spawning areas and casting at cruising fish, and the hard floater fished slow, or deadsticked over beds. The soft bait is used fished on beds for fish that are spawning.

Post spawn I fish the floater and slow sink hard gill around bluegill beds trying to match species colors. I also use the bait in place of topwaters using a twitching action on the surface to get topwater strikes.

Summer and fall I use more shad, herring, and baby bass type swimbaits where I fish but like the hard gills fished slow with twitches if I see more bluegill around or near the surface on calm days. I also keep my eyes peeled for strike on the shorline since these are usually bluegill getting busted. On lakes and ponds without shad and herring I still use the hard gill since bluegills are everywhere. I have also caught some big summer and fall bass slow rolling the soft gill in deeper water.

That's a general overview of how I fish bluegill swimbaits over a year. They pretty much work all year but used in different ways.

try out a lunker punker jr. amazing top water bait, and you can get the blemished ones off of *** for half price.