San Diego & SoCal Fishing Forums

Fished at El Capitan in the kayak on Sunday in calm sunny Fall conditions. Bluegill!

The bass were crashing around on top here and there, until early afternoon. They were very picky about eating. Fun watching and following the packs of them hunting in open water on the electronics, and I had a few blowups on top right around my kayak. They were hunting shad from 1' to 50' deep. Caught a few on my dropshots deeper like 20-40' but they were moving pretty fast.

When bass activity slowed, I switched to the schools of bluegill sitting in 25' of water - they were biting pretty good on dropshot redworms.

Great action on ultralight tackle - 6 lb braid to 6 lb fluoro and a small mosquito hook.
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I bet the bluegill fought harder than that little bass huh? Nice!

Dannicus wrote: Mon Oct 27, 2025 9:07 pm I bet the bluegill fought harder than that little bass huh? Nice!

Yes, certainly some great battles going on around the kayak, fun to see the bass jump! I love catching either one of them.
Cheers!

Nice size Bluegill, did you try any Bluegill Cranks?

I throw a 2.5 inch little jerk bait at the bass on top, which sometimes gets them, I guess it would catch a bluegill too but only runs 2 to 5' deep. Late afternoon the panfish were up shallow along the banks, but I couldn't get them to eat anything. Seemed like they were splashing/crashing on bugs or minnows along the banks, I think. Maybe some small bass in there too.

This time of year through January, I'm fishing in 25 - 50' of water a lot and chasing fish deep on the FFS, and working different presentations. Dropshots, sonar minnows, crappie jigs, ice jigs.

All the bluegill that I caught were sitting deep, 20'+

Way to make it happen!

You usually have some Bass follow up those Gills. Big Dark marks. They wait for you to throw them back in the water for an easy meal. I drop a Bluegill Swimbait, with a weighted head and a nice 4/0 EWG Hook in the tail and let it free fall. On the right days… deadly. Like a Yellowtail on a Mackerel. We call it the Plunge Bait and we started it at Lake Perris in the mid 80s, when Fishfinders got good enough to spot the followers.

Nice fish