This is the BEST BAIT FOR BLUEGILLS. CATCH MORE BLUEGILLS

on today's video we're gonna talk about what I believe is hands down the best bluegill bait ever [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] hey they're ultra youtubers Steve Kaneda from kinetise practical owned doors and you know like I said earlier we are gonna talk about what I believe is the best bait for blue gills ever now I know earthworms have probably caught more blue gills than any other bait out there but I don't believe that they are the best bait for blue gills at least for open water fishing and that's what we're talking about today we're talking about the best bait for open water bluegill fishing to me the best bait ever for blue gills is a leech specifically a ribbon leech I remember the first time that ever fished with leeches I was about 10 years old me and my family were down in Rhinelander Wisconsin visiting my grandparents and my grandpa caneta had got this hot fishing tip some guy was telling him at the papermill that they were getting these big blue gills on this Lake just kind of outside of town and they were catching him on leeches and none of us had ever fished with leeches before but we went down to the bait shop got some leeches and went out to this lake and kind of tried him for the first time and I'll tell you what I was very impressed with using leeches for bait we did get some nice blue gills that day we also caught a lot of bass I remember I even caught a small muskie that day and I know from that day on me and my dad always kind of kept leeches as part of our fishing repertoire you know almost really no matter what we were going fishing for we pretty much tried to make it a point to always have some leeches with us so how you fish leeches well for blue gills any kind of rigors set up that you would use a worm you could just replace it with a leech 99% of the time when I'm fishing for bluegill with leeches I'm fishing them under a float and the specifics of that rig kind of depends on a few things okay first of all if my intentions are just to target blue gills I will buy the leeches that are a little bit on the smaller size leeches that are maybe 3/4 of an inch to maybe an inch and a half long sometimes I've actually bought leeches that were too small okay so you kind of got a look at him I've gone into bait shops before and got the small each's and they were almost too small they were like you know less than three quarters of an inch long more on the side of a half inch long and you really just don't get the wiggle out of something that short you know once you put it on the hook so you kind of gotta take a look at them sometimes what bait shops consider a medium leech is the size I want for blue gills sometimes it's the small you're just gonna have to kind of check them all for yourself next again if I am just targeting blue gills I like to use like a size six or eight Aberdeen hook okay you got that nice long shank on an Aberdeen hook that longer shank makes it a lot easier to get the hook out of a blue gills moles right they got that small mouth so it's nice to have that little extra length in the shank gives you something to grab get that hook out of a blue gills mouth and the line would be just like any other bluegill rig you know four to six pound test model works great you know a lot of times I'm fishing clear water so I like to usually go with maybe a four to six pound test fluorocarbon leader then add a couple split shot and a matching float or bobber and buy a matching floater bobber I just mean coordinate the amount of sinkers you have with the size of your bobber you know match those up so it doesn't take very much pull from that bluegill to bring that bobber underneath the surface of the water and just real quick we'll just kind of go over some bobber basics this is kind of your most basic setup right here this is just a clip-on bobber alright I just got it clipped right onto the monofilament couple sinkers and my Aberdeen hook and this is a real basic setup this this sort of setup has just caught it bajillion bluegill I'm sure through the course of history real simple works great when you're fishing for that are probably in four feet of water - less than four feet of water okay now if you're getting into where you're fishing a little deeper than four feet you know anything beyond that it could be a little bit harder to cast with a clip-on bobber so that's what I'll switch up and go to a slip bobber and again just your basic slip bobber rig you know you got a bobber stop you got a bead you got a slip bobber slides along that stop you can move up and down the line at any depth you want and in this particular setup I got my split shot I do have a swivel and then I do have my fluorocarbon leader here okay and then the hook and if any of you guys have any questions about slip bobber fishing I do have a playlist at my channel I have a few videos that I did on slip bobber fishing I will leave a link to that playlist in the description below so you can check that out if you want okay so earlier in the video I talked about how worms are an excellent bait for blue gills but I actually believe that leeches are better so why are leeches better and I know a lot of you guys out there are saying well you know leeches might be good and all but they're kind of expensive you know for the cost of a dozen leeches I can go and I can get three dozen worms well there's certainly truth to that but I do kind of believe a lot of times you can catch just as many blue gills on a dozen leeches as you can three dozen worms worms do kind of get picked off the hook maybe a little easier than leeches and you know and even if they don't you know if leeches actually work better you know to me it's kind of worth the extra cost know since we're on the subject of fish picking bait off your hook let's talk about how to hook a leech probably the best way to hook a leech is you take the leech in your hands and you find the bigger end or the bigger sucker leeches kind of have a sucker on both ends but one's a little bigger you know one ends a little fatter and that's the end you want to find and take your hook and put it through the leech one time just below that bigger end that bigger sucker the bigger end of a leech is actually its tail so if you can imagine you know a leech being hooked by its tail it's probably gonna sit there you know and try to swim away from that hook all the time so it seems like that's probably the the best way to hook them to get the most action now the next thing you should do after you hook your leech is just set it down in the water for a second and take a look at it okay and the first thing it should do as soon as it hits the water it should start swimming okay but every once in a while you will get a rogue leech and all they want to do is just ball up curl up on that hook they don't swim they're just sitting there all curled up on the hook they twist they turn I've actually had them tie my line in knots before okay and it's been my experience when that happens the best thing you can do is take that leech off and move on to a new leech okay those those rolled rebellious leeches they just don't seem like they can be rehabilitated so the best thing you can do is to move on to a new leech now although leeches do stay on the hook pretty good every once in a while you might find yourself fishing for bluegills where there's quite a few small blue gills around okay you're getting little bumps you're getting little bites you're going to set the hook you're not coming up with anything you reel in and your leech is gone when that starts happening to me with a little bit of consistency sometimes I will double hook the leech I'll run that hook one more time through the leech it does diminish the action of the leech but I still believe that even a double hook leech has a lot more action than a worm so I still view that as a better option or a better bait than worms and once the leech is double hooked they are on the hook really good then it's pretty difficult for even small blue gills to rob you now I know some of you guys out there that have never fished with leeches are gonna be a little squirmish about handling leeches okay you know cuz they will stick to you okay they will use their suckers and they will stick to you it's you know it's gonna be totally temporary right because you're just gonna hook them and you're gonna cast them also it's not an issue in fact when they do stick to you it actually makes it easier to get the hooks in them alright and you know I'll tell you if my youngest daughter will sit in the boat and just play with leeches you guys should be able to pick one up and put it on a hook right so guys just you know if you are a little squirmish about using leeches just just get over it because they are going to catch you more fish another reason that I think leeches are just a fantastic bait is that leeches are a predator leeches are a carnivore okay so leeches hunt for their food and sometimes that food is fish eggs so blue gills and other fish are kind of programmed to be intolerant toward leeches especially when it's around their spawning seasons so not only do blue gills view leeches as food they also view them as a threat and it can be very aggressive toward them sometimes now I mentioned those other fish okay and this is another benefit of fishing with leeches you know even though you might be out fishing with leeches targeting blue gills you have an excellent chance of catching just about anything that swims in the lake you're fishing I personally have caught a lot of different fish on leeches I've caught suckers carp bullheads perch bass crappies walleyes pike and even that muskie I mentioned earlier and you know I actually have caught my personal best walleye on leech my personal best bass on a leech my personal best crappie on a leech and far and away I've caught the majority of my big blue gills on leeches to know if I'm all bluegill fishing with leeches and I feel like there's a chance I might run into a decent bass or a decent walleye I might upgrade the rig a little bit I might beef it up just a little bit oftentimes when I'm in that situation I'll swap out that Aberdeen hook and I'll go with something with a little stiffness to it you know maybe like a Gamakatsu walleye wide gap hook these work really good you know I'll go with like a size 2 4 6 something like that and then I'll also upgrade the line a little bit right if I was using like a 4-pound test fluorocarbon leader for the blue gills I might upgrade that to like a eight or a ten pound test fluorocarbon leader you know something where you can set the hooks a little better something that might fend off a few small pike from biting you off and also in that situation I might go with slightly bigger leeches even though I may be targeting blue gills specifically you know if there's nice blue gills in the area they can definitely handle a bigger leech but then you've also got that option where hey that might attract a bass or a walleye ole burn and that's always fun to have a few of those mixed in - okay guys if you've never used leeches before for blue gills go out and get some and give it a try I think you might be pretty impressed at how well they catch blue gills all right and then all those bonus fish we talked about - all right if you got bass swimming in the area if you've got walleyes swimming in the area you're gonna catch those - and hey listen if you're kind of worried about being squeamish just get over it okay because you're gonna catch more fish all right they stick to it for a second it's no big deal you get used to it just move on alright and also remember to hunt fish laughs repeat this day of caneta from kinetise practical outdoors and thanks for watching and God bless

Channel: Knetters Practical Outdoors

Views: 22,675

Rating: 4.8590784 out of 5

Keywords: bluegills, sunfish, fishing for bluegills, walleye, bass, pike, crappie, fishing with leeches, fishing for bluegills with leeches, Upper Michigan, Upper Michigan Fishing, peter knetter, fishing Michigan, fishing Wisconsin, master angler bluegills, 10 inch bluegills

Id: BiL3oylvzkE

Length: 13min 26sec (806 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 14 2020