The past few weeks nothing has been better for quaility bass at lake Varner than the Mattlures gills. Shock studys done in late spring on Varner indicate bluegill and other panfish make up most of the diet of the bass here. So once April hits and the bluegill are shallow it's time for some exciting swimbait fishing with bluegill baits. Some of the fish are caught swimming it over beds of late spawning fish. Others are caught when the males up to three and four pounds are guarding fry and think the bluegill is eating the fry. Others in early May are caught fishing where big bass are feeding on spawning bluegill. No matter how you catch them it's always fun with most of the strikes coming in shallow water on the surface.

Here's just a few photos of some gill swimbait fish. In the first photo on the top right the big bass hit a soft Mattlures Bluegill on a bed. It hit so hard going at full swimming speed into the bed from about ten feet away. It never did stop or slow down. It just inhaled the bait at full speed and almost pulled the rod from the hand of the guy in the photo since he wasn't expecting such a reaction from the fish after trying to catch it on a jig with less results. All the other bass in this group of photos hit the floating hard gill when I went out just throwing the hard gill all day for some fun topwater strikes. I ended up with ten bass on the gill for the day.

   

The photo here is the biggest I caught last week during the full mooon when the bluegill were on the beds good. We caught tons of two to five pound fish on both the floater and the sinker and one seven pounder. The one in this photo weighed around eight pounds.

i see you're still on  the big 'uns as always.  way to go buddy!

some dandies there. Nice catchin.