Depending on who you talk to, Robert Ruark might have been a coward and an alcoholic (although I don’t know who wouldn’t be terrified or need a stiff drink after being charged by a cape buffalo), but he was also a great writer. “The Old Man and the Boy” is a collection of his columns, first published in Field and Stream, that recount memories of growing up with his grandfather in North Carolina. Whenever I go bluegill fishing, I can’t help but think of Ruark’s essay, “Summertime, and the Livin’ was Easy” because that’s exactly what he did, go bluegill fishing with his grandfather using a cane pole and worms. There’s a simplicity in that. A joy that many of us speed past on the fast lane to bigger and better sporting pleasures.
Bluegills are the quintessential summer fish. Most people who pay them any mind, and very few do, target them in mid to late June when they are on their spawning beds, shortly after largemouth and smallmouth bass vacate theirs. Bluegill beds appear as honeycombs, one bed almost touching its neighbor. But if that’s the only time you chase bluegills, you’re missing the boat.
August and early September are never too late to step into the boat and chase the terriers of the fish world. And there can be no better livin’ in August than chasing bluegills. My friend John Deschermeier is somewhat of a bluegill aficionado, and he was kind enough to show me some easy livin’ this August. Show me might be too strong of a phrase. Swearing me to secrecy, he took me to his favorite bluegill lake, but turning off the main road, he blindfolded me. Which was problematic because I was driving. Suffice it to say, his favorite bluegill lake could be yours as well. All they need to have in common is food and cover, and for bluegills that means reeds, weed beds, sand or mucky bottoms and drop-offs in anywhere from 2- to 6 feet of water.
As I prepared to slide the Boyne Outfitters’ Flycraft raft into the lake, I glanced down at Deschermeier’s tackle. I knew he was resourceful, somewhat of a do-it-yourselfer. But I didn’t know he was related to MacGyver. Camo spray-painted kitty litter buckets held neatly labeled VHS cassette cases. Lots of them. Opening one up, Deschermeier showed how he glued closed-cell foam inside each case to hold his flies. The closed cell foam held no water so his hooks didn’t rust, and the cases fit perfectly inside the kitty litter tubs. He explained how he got tired of his gear getting wet from boat spray and rain. Next, he donned an old pair of fingerless leather gloves. I was puzzled. I was the one doing the rowing. We had no plans of encountering any MMA fighters on the lake.
“What’s with the gloves?”
“I don’t like getting spined by bluegills.”
Ahhh … it all made sense.
The temps were supposed to climb into the high 80s that day, and I had suggested we hit the lake at daybreak to avoid the heat. But Deschermeier politely declined. Bluegill fishing was a gentleman’s game, and at this point in his life, he explained that sleep was a priority. We hit the lake around 10 a.m. I wondered what the bluegills would think of that? Slipping along the edge of a reed bank, John deftly cast a tiny white wooden popper, let it rest until the rings from the initial splash disappeared, twitched it ever so slightly and was quickly into a fish. This one turned out to be a small largemouth bass, so apparently 10 a.m. was a fine time to hit the lake. This was definitely easy livin’.
After that first fish, however, things went quiet for about a half hour as we slipped along in deeper water, probing the weed beds and reeds along shore that marked the transition from about 2 feet of water to maybe 4 feet. Deschermeier fired up a cigar, reveling in the peacefulness of a glass calm lake in August, the sun warming our backs without feeling oppressive. Out of the blue, he turned to me.
“I’ve caught the big three.”
He was not one to brag so it took me by surprise. Tarpon, bonefish, permit? I didn’t think he fished the salt water.
“Duck, seagull and bat,” he grinned. “Every one of them an accident.”
“Did you land all of them? Were you able to get the hook out?”
“I did the duck and the seagull. The bat I just got close enough to clip the line and let him go.”
We drifted along some thicker weeds, the kind that look like puffed up raccoon tails. It was there Deschermeier found the first pod of bluegills. One after another attacked the white popper. But bluegills are a pack fish, and they tend to hang out in pods of similarly sized fish. These were all small.
Not being a good bluegill fisherman myself, I was somewhat surprised by our late August tactics. I had anticipated doing the opposite of what we were doing. Instead of hanging on the deep edge of the drop-off and casting into the shallows, I expected we’d be on the shallow edge of the drop-off and cast into the depths. I further expected to use weighted bead-head nymphs or soft hackles, maybe some rubber legs or webby partridge feathers that might pulse and flutter as they slowly sank down into 12 or more feet of water. While that tactic very well may have worked, Deschermeier proved it wasn’t necessary.
Instead, we rowed further along the shoreline where most of the reeds disappeared and it became even shallower. We could see the remnants of old bass beds, large dark circles that had filled in with muck and decaying weeds. They looked empty until Deschermeier carefully flipped the little white popper over one. There it was! A palm-sized bluegill, respectable for sure, doubled his little fly rod. It wasn’t an anomaly. Deschermeier continued casting, quickly landing two more just like it.
He was proving that bluegills like easy living, too. These fish were still in shallow, glass-calm water and would readily hit a popper on the surface. And that is Deschermeier’s preferred way to fish them. But it’s not his only way. He will often use terrestrials like grasshoppers and ants in August as well as black leech patterns such as bead-head wooly buggers in sizes 8-10. When they won’t come to the surface, he’ll use a sinking line and probe the depths with a prince nymph or any other nymph that works for trout. And if it makes you feel more sophisticated to target August bluegills by using the same mayfly patterns such as tricos and blue-winged olives that work for trout, knock yourself out. Bluegills will readily inhale those, too. But today, the white wooden popper was working just fine, and if it’s not broken, why fix it?
After all, this was August bluegill fishing. It was summertime, and the livin’ (and catchin’) was easy.