Did some bluegill fishing on Sat at a friends managed pond/lake. I was bringing in some really nice bluegill (8 - 9 inches) pretty much on every cast for over 3 hours. On three occasions a monster bass (had to be big to swallow 8 inch bluegills) would swallow the bluegill and I'd fight it for a few minutes, but it would eventually spit out the bluegill. Any suggestions on how to land the bass with the hook in the bluegill and not the bass??

Should I have given it some slack and let it swallow the bluegill deeper? Actually thought of tying on a large bare bass hook and dropping a bluegill fly about 3 inches back. Thinking that the bass hook would catch the bass after it swallowed the bluegill?

JR

I would suggest quarter stick emergers
They'll bring 'em up every time.

Happens all the time in my ponds. The primary bass food is bluegills and over time the bass figure out that most artificial lures/flys are bad for them so they will only hit live bluegills.

Catch a live one and transfer it over to some heavier tackle with a sturdy hook....best recipe for catching the largest bass in every pond in Texas.

"I would suggest quarter stick emergers
They'll bring 'em up every time."

That's pretty funny, but it would really mess up your tippet.
My brother told me he used cherry bombs in ponds back in the 50's, but they didn't use fly rods to cast them.
I'm 16 years younger than him and cherry bombs were illegal in OK by the time I was a teenager so I never tried that form of fishing.

Quarter stick emergers LMAO Good one for sure. If your serious and you have enough bass taking them just tie on to the bend of the hook of what your catching the gills on and add a plain hook 6" behind it. Or better yet just fish for bass......

Big bas will eat a fly

Had the exact same thing happen to me yesterday. While the roast was cooking for Easter dinner at my parents home near Canyon Lake I walked down to the lake to get 30 minutes of fishing in. On 3 separate occasions with a bluegill on the line I was suddenly fighting a much larger fish. The first two times after the bass jumped a couple time it would spit the bluegill and be gone.

The third time something awesome happened. I was pulling in the bluegill and visually got to see the bass come and slam the bluegill near the surface. The fight ensued with the bass doing lot of acrobatics, on one jump as the bass is out of the water it spit the bluegill who went flying up into the air several feet. The split second the gill hit the water the bass crushed it on the surface again and the fight was back on. Lucky for the bluegill and myself the fly somehow got hooked deep in the bass and I was able to land it. Fortunately I was able to get the hook out of it's throat with no bleeding or tearing for a clean release.