TLDR: Starts off interesting and gets even better.

 

After work today I was fishing in my backyard tossing a 13 Fishing Scamp 1.5 squarebill in the Louisiana Frog Cakes color. This bait has been killing it for me with bass lately as the water temps warm and the lake in my area is crystal clear. To me, its color pattern can be picked up as a frog, baby bass, or small crappie and that's why I think it's performed so well lately. I immediately landed a small bass up against my seawall.

 

Anyway, I'm fishing it close and parallel to the bank over some rocks, feel a few small nips and figure it's a bluegill defending its territory. The bait seems like it's fouled and there's a leaf stuck to it. Nope. It's a small 3" pumpkinseed. And it's not foul hooked. I lipped it. I'm laughing because this little guy is barely bigger than the bait.

 

But wait. There's more.

 

I take a break for dinner and head back outside with a few rods. I toss the squarebill again and land a 4-5 pound blue catfish. There's a storm heading my way so I decide to take a few casts with a 1/2 oz buzzbait. I don't even know who makes the bait. It's white and green both with the skirt and the blade, with green dots on the blade. Anyway, I cast along that same rocky stretch, feel the slight pecking, and when I reel it it sure enough it's another small pumpkinseed that lipped on the trailer hook. He was too small to get that main hook, but he managed to get lipped on that thinner and smaller trailer hook. This one was even a little smaller than the first one.

 

I've caught bluegills on poppers and all kinds of baits, including having a bluegill grab the skirt of a spinnerbait and not let go. But nothing this small and especially not on a buzzbait of all things. Anyway, I thought this was odd.

Those little guys are aggressive fish, aren't they? 

 

 I got a Redear a couple of months ago on a garlic scented finesse worm Texas Rigged with a 1/0 hook. Not sure how I even set the hook on that little mouth but it somehow stuck 'em. 

Caught one on a vision 110jr the other day. Lure was just about as long as him. I often wonder if they hit these larger lures more out of aggression than they do to eat it. 

4 hours ago, Functional said:

Caught one on a vision 110jr the other day. Lure was just about as long as him. I often wonder if they hit these larger lures more out of aggression than they do to eat it. 

I think that bluegills are territorial.

Those pumpkinseeds will eat a bare Aberdeen hook if it’s in front of them. Voracious little guys. I remember as a kid, my friends and I challenging each other with who could catch one on a weirder bait. Wood chip, chewing gum, and dandelion heads as well as bare hooks are some of the things I remember catching pumpkinseeds on. They are about the prettiest fish that swim, too. I love targeting them on dry flies. 

Spinnerbait pumpkinseed - I think it was just a bit too curious: