So as crazy as this may sound I’ve never seen a bluegill or heck any fish bed prior to earlier today. So for context the “retention pond” that I fish is not very large and although I stopped both yesterday and Monday for whatever reason the pond is extremely clear currently. I have quite a few questions but I’ll start with do bluegill “stage” their spawning areas based on size? I ask as I’ve pulled some decent 6”-8” gills out of here but the ones I saw were spawning in no more than 10-12” of water and not one was bigger than 4” at best. Also does this affect the bass bite at all? I ask this as the bass bite has been non existent for about a week now along with the crappie bite which I just attributed to the crappie moving more to the center of the pond closer to the fountain which is where I was usually able to pick up a few of each species before the fountain got moved further away from the shore.

Edited Wednesday at 01:24 AM5 days by Eric 26
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Like most fish, the more apex the individual is, the better conditions it gets whether that is spawning, feeding, cover, etc. The big ones push the little ones around. If you’re a spawning bluegill, you don’t want to be 12” from the shoreline in 4” of water where every avian predator owns you and if a bass wants you you’re pinned to the shoreline. So bigger bluegills will tend to spawn a little bit deeper with ‘how deep’ being relative to the clarity of the water and how good the bottom is there.

Bass love spawning bluegills. Bluegills are dumb. When they spawn they are really dumb and stop paying attention to their safety. They will chase another bluegill or anything else off their beds and sometimes do it too aggressively. Find a spawning flat the size of a piece of plywood and then find the cover (usually grass) that is the closest to it. Throw something that is 3” long in a bluegill type color and pull it from the flat into the cover. Then set the hook. It’s not always that easy, but once the bass tune in to the bluegill spawn they will often eat them to the exclusion of all else.

As for what baits? Anything that gets in and out of the cover you have and is in a bluegill type shape and color. Depending on the day, that might be a vibrating jig, a senko, a beaver bait, or a small Ned. A buzzbait does it too if they are looking up (try throwing a buzzbait up onto a bluegill spawning flat in the dark and pulling it back over the nearby grass).