Horseshoe Chain Gills

It has been many years since I have seen the quality bluegills that I have been getting this year in the Horseshoe Chain. Typically for big gills I travel to many of the “well known” big gill producing lakes. Lately I haven’t had to travel far. This first picture is a friend of mine, Rob with a nice 10 inch gill from the Horseshoe Chain.

The gills on the Horseshoe Chain, as well an many other lakes in the state did not have a successful spawn this year. Most of the females are still carrying eggs and will not spawn this year. This is the result of the cold spring we had. However, for anglers this means there are some really BIG fish to be had. The next fish is one I caught that broke the 10 inch mark.

Now that most of the spring weeds have died off, there is not a lot of cover on the Chain. This lack of cover has forced a lot of fish to seek the cover of very shallow water. We have been having a great couple weeks catching giant smallies as well as gills. We only got one smallmouth on this outing and it was not much for size, although we were after the big gills. The next photo is Rob with another big gill.

We have been working very shallow water for these gills and as you can see by the next photo, we are not the only ones targeting these shallow fish. This Blue Heron would not leave us alone, as he had his eyes on a nice meal also. We did keep some fish to eat this trip, but we did not keep any of these big gills. Just like any other species, it is important to release the bigger fish and keep some smaller ones to eat.