Anyone tried the Gilly's with any success, and if so, what's your best rigging option and size. I'm looking for a weedless soft plastic bluegill presentation

I’ve used them during the spawn time once and caught a couple on a 1/8 ounce Texas rig. Caught me a couple but I think a regular creature bait is probably better for that case.

My starting lineup this year is junebug 7" power worms weightless, I figured out how to rig it so it goes nose down and the tail stick up for a few seconds and looks like its eating off the bottom, Rage craws, Zoom lizards 4, 6, and 8 inch, 4" power minnows and got some Power jerk shads to try, never used flukes but Ive seen so many good reviews on the super fluke that I had to try em. And Im trying to fish weightless soft plastics as much as possible this year. Maybe I dont need the gilly, but ive seen huge bass eat bluegills at one pond I fish. I have the Bucca baby bluegill so that might work if I give it a chance

the bellows gill/bellows swimmer might be worth looking in to. I know several guys who swear by them when bass are chasing gills off beds.

Those look interesting, not sure if they would fool the bass in this pond, it gets pounded. Then again might just be the ticket

46 minutes ago, Harold H said:

Those look interesting, not sure if they would fool the bass in this pond, it gets pounded. Then again might just be the ticket

I have had good success with the strike king caffeine shad and also an offbrand of the bellows gill. I plan on ordering some bellows gill and I got some super fluke to try.

Ive seen people mention the caffeine shads are good, and the zoom super fluke has so many good reviews, and good weight to it and its weedless so should slay

One of my favorite baits. They want you to use the ringed wide gap hooks but just get Owner hooks with the twist locks and use those.

I catch a ton of fish on the gillys.

2 minutes ago, JediAmoeba said:

One of my favorite baits. They want you to use the ringed wide gap hooks but just get Owner hooks with the twist locks and use those.

I catch a ton of fish on the gillys.

What size do you prefer? They're practically giving away the 110's on tackle wearhouse

I tried it. Couldn't figure them out so I gave the two packs I had away at the ramp to somebody

7 minutes ago, IYAOYAS said:

I tried it. Couldn't figure them out so I gave the two packs I had away at the ramp to somebody

That seems to be the biggest problem people have is getting it to run true. Ive seen some say they fish it like a dying bluegill

One way to pretty much guarantee them running straight is using them as a bladed jig trailer. They are the perfect bluegill profile without being too tall and harder for them to get the hook.

I tried one on a Neko and really liked the look, but the fish didn't agree with me.

I bought a 4 pack of the 3.5” ones on clearance at the end of last season. Although I didn’t use them I’m going to try rigging them flat on a wide gap hook which is the way Doug Stange suggested and he seems to like rigging quite a few paddle tail baits that way as well. Not sure how they’ll do but the ponds I fish bluegills are the main source of food for the bass.

3 minutes ago, Eric 26 said:

I bought a 4 pack of the 3.5” ones on clearance at the end of last season. Although I didn’t use them I’m going to try rigging them flat on a wide gap hook which is the way Doug Stange suggested and he seems to like rigging quite a few paddle tail baits that way as well. Not sure how they’ll do but the ponds I fish bluegills are the main source of food for the bass.

Same, I need a rralistic bluegill presentation to fool these hawgs in one pond I fish. Ive hooked into one twice on live bluegill and live black salty, felt like hooking into a cinder block. Lost it both times unfortunately, but saw it both times, over 10 easy. And people will just dangle half dead bluegills in the water and sometimes catch them, but Im trying to trick them. But maybe sometimes live bait is the only way to coax the monsters into biting. Ive got some european nightcrawlers going in a bin, starting to lay cocoons so Im hoping to have a good supply of those as a backup, they get to a pretty good size if you feed them well

@Harold H Now I’m going down a rabbit hole to google “European Night Crawlers” as I’ve never heard of them thank you very much 😆🤣😂 Man I wish I could even find a pond nearby that had a 10 pound bass in it, the best I’ve ever done was my pb that I believe weighed 5 or close to it that I caught out of a retention pond that received almost zero pressure back in the day as it was relatively new but has since turned into a graveyard sadly enough. I used to hit it in the spring for crappie right after ice out as well.

57 minutes ago, Eric 26 said:

Now I’m going down a rabbit hole to google “European Night Crawlers” as I’ve never heard of them thank you very much

Something you should know....

"Little-known secret: Almost every earthworm in most of the U.S. came from somewhere else. Native earthworms all but disappeared more than 10,000 years ago, when glaciers from a Pleistocene ice age wiped them out. A few survived further south. But today, virtually all earthworms north of Pennsylvania are non-native."

So what you get/dig up basically from the Mason-Dixon line north ARE European earthworms...yep, another invasive species.

During the reign of Cleopatra in Egypt, there were severe penalties for removing earthworms from the soil, look it up. European crawlers came over with European settlers hundreds of years ago. The Alabama Jumpers are considered invasive, but im not convinced of the invasive talk. Apperently their castings are detrimental to forest floors, but havent found any real proof of this

Savage Gear 3D Line Thru Bluegill OG | Savage Gear https://share.google/zQz2tucPDwNLew06W

Just found these, they look good, pricey though

2 hours ago, Harold H said:

Savage Gear 3D Line Thru Bluegill OG | Savage Gear https://share.google/zQz2tucPDwNLew06W

Just found these, they look good, pricey though

for anyone just browsing, these are 3.5oz and 6". they swim pretty well, are durable and the colours are solid. I am happy with my purchase

Savage Gear makes some really nice bluegill swimbaits. They've got a few that I really like and fish a lot.

https://www.tacklewarehouse.com/Savage_Gear_Pulse_Tail_RTF_Bluegill_Swimbaits/descpage-SGRTFBG.html

https://www.tacklewarehouse.com/Savage_Gear_Pulse_Tail_LB_Bluegill_Swimbaits_4/descpage-SGPTLBB.html

https://www.tacklewarehouse.com/Savage_Gear_Structure_Gill_Swimbait/descpage-SGSGS.html