This gill season has about 3-4 weeks remaining and the bite is still pretty good. Of anyone would like to get in on some of the action, please give me a shout at 2149261255. I've added a few pics of some of our trips...

Nice job!

What lake?

Nice haul! Good job.

Wow, you guys sure are working those bedding fish over pretty hard.

Hmmm...Abuse of a finite resource ?

Kind of my thoughts as well. I take some really good slabs off my favorite lakes but I nearly always turn the larger fish loose, unless they are hooked in the gills, and I rarely keep more than a half a dozen for my own table. If all these slabs are coming off the beds then that is a lot of spawners out of the gene pool. Not cool in my humble opinion.

Fairfield from what I heard by someone.

I can certainly appreciate resource concerns Tom Rom and Vogey. That being said .harvest is absolutely imperative and even tho there is no " state imposed" limit on bluegills I impose one myself. We have not impacted the resource in the slightest and do know that bluegill are not only caught off beds...They are caught free roaming, in grass, on trees etc. Thanks for the feedback

Slab...Just curious how you know that you "have not impacted the resource" in the slightest ? Is this an opinion, or has there actually been studies that support this claim ? I have read several articles about other states that have placed restrictions on the numbers of sunfish taken from their waters because it DID impact the resource significantly. I know that our growing season for these fish is longer, and they probably spawn many more times than those in many other states north of here, but if everyone takes the same approach as you, I don't see how the resource can't be devastated.

It won’t take “everyone” doing this to devastate the QUALITY of the bluegill in that lake. Just all the guides that are strip mining this lake of trophy size bluegill using sidescan sonar. Slabrador is far from the only one doing this.

It has been PROVEN without question that if you harvest the biggest bluegill the balance on the lake will be impaired and the size will decrease.

You guys should limit your harvest to fish NO LARGER than 9 inches. If you do this one thing your impact will be lessened significantly.

.

Hey Vogey I actually have communicated extensively with a biologist that worked for the lake that I'm fishing and according to creel studies and other surveys the sunfish population is beyond great!! Many of the gills don't bed up at all and will never see a hook at all. I do realize that the preference of some would still be the same regardless of evidence and that is perfectly understandable but just know that we are working to guide responsibly. There arent but a few people that guide the lake im fishing and i cant count them on one hand. I'm out there I know. Thanks for your concerns and your points are well taken

Wisconsin DNR did a study that showed small lakes like Fairfield do get negatively impacted by removing too many large males. By fishing for spawning fish and removing the numbers and size in your pictures, you will find it hard to convince most of us and I bet the fish biologist for Fairfield that repeated harvests like you are showing wont have an impact.

Personally I have always followed to concept of limit your catch, don't catch your limit. Now there are some exceptions like when they stock trout because none of those fish will survive the summer heat to spawn but on naturally reproducing fish I follow that concept. That's just me and you are free to disagree but a fish with no daily bag limit still should not be fished too heavily. I want the people 10 years from now to enjoy the resource as much as I do.

just because you can doesn't mean you should