Saturday while paddling around the lake in my tube, I saw a red wasp struggling on the surface film (having no love and lot of scores to settle with wasp I did not attempt to rescue it). Three bluegills came up and “smacked” it and left it fluttering on the surface. I had several “smacks” on my hopper without takes. I would interested in you opinion on what was going on.
I would have loved to watch that myself. I have no idea what they were doing. I am interested to hear what others say too.
MY guess is that the fish were to small to get the wasp or popper in their mouth. I try using a midge, as a dropper, when I have that happen
to see if the fish will take the midge. Also try a smalldiametger popper.
Rick
My 1st guess would be that they were trying to “pull it apart” or maybe they have experienced a sting before.
think about this …when you use live crickets or grasshoppers,alotta times when you get a hit,and check your bait,ya come up with just a piece of the poor liddle guy… a school of perch are like a bunch of bullies to a grasshopper…they are a team…just a thought.
I noticed that the other night with my hopper, the blue gills were violently attacking it or just playing with it. a few tried to eat it but ended up getting a hook stuck in their lip. Too bad I didnt feel like cleaning 4 blue gill at 330 in the morning. I lost that grass hopper the next day 20 ft up in a tree.
David
My theory…and it IS just a theory…is this:
A bluegill’s eyes are on opposite sides of its broad, tall body. This gives it an excellent field of view, but very little, if any, overlap. Dead center in front of it (where the fly munching end is), I’d imagine that close-in, they have a blind spot. When taking something off the surface, the motions necessary mean that once the bluegill decides to go for it, the closer it gets, the more guesswork is involved in a target’s location. Also as it tips up, its blind spot to the rear expands to the point that it cant see most of what’s under it…a very vulnerable position. This would explain most of the gills I’ve caught, with their cautious inspection of a fly, then the quick acceleration up, quick grab, and fast turn back down into a normal position.
When you add to this hasty tactic a prey that is moving quickly and unpredictably (in terms of speed and direction)…or a prey larger than the gill’s mouth, it’s got to try to make the best of the situation without becoming lunch itself, so it will bite off whatever it can get, or, failing that, just abandon the bug, rather than risk becoming a bass snack.
The gills were plenty big enough to have slammed the wasp, if I had a good camera ready I could have gotten a great photo of the 3 of them checking out the wasp. I was wondering about the possibility of having a fear of the sting. The wife of a friend says they are trying to kill the bug when they smack it and don’t take the hook. That is an good an explanation as any I guess, the wasp fluttered off in the film.
Uncle Jesse, that’s certainly a possibility. I have caught smallmouth that were hooked on the outside of their gill plates from where they were smacking the crawfish that I used for bait. That is a possibility with the wasp.
Inspired (mislead) by the copper john and other patterns that use biots for tails, I tyed up a dry that used two sections of goose quill for a tail. Small 'gills smacked that poor fly all around the pool but could not get the barb in their mouth. I got uncounted hits but zero hookups using that fly last winter. I realize that you said that your gills could have swallowed the wasp, but I wanted to share my design flaw with others, since it had been mentioned.
I can also make an off-the-wall suggestion. I have heard that many fish are very fond of the taste of ants, bees, etc. Maybe your 'gills were taking turns licking the lollipop, so to speak, before taking a bite. More likely they were just trying to kill it before eating it.
Ed
I totally agree
Bluegill frequently “taste” before they bite. This is why a traditional bobber often “wiggles” before it goes down. If a bluegill is convinced the fly is food, it will take it agressviely. Otherwise, it will “taste” to see what the food does and what kind of mouth feel it has. This is a much more common occurrence with surface flies than with nymphs or wets.
Thanks Coach, let me take this opportunity to say I enjoy your Cajun jokes, since my family ran off to south Louisiana and left me in Mississippi when I graduated from high school, allowing me to come in the summer to help building I-10 through New Orleans, I have gained an appreciation for the culture and people, and food.
Unfortunately, Ed’s comment about “licking the lollipop” has place the image of a teenage boy licking a wasp and the probable result. The fact that image comes to me probably reflects on the people I grew up with, we had lots of fun with only minor injuries.
I think a lot of times if they are not sure about surface food they try to drown it before they eat it. Other times they’d smack the tar out of a cigarette butt like it was a chunk of wonder bread!
Bluegill/bream fishing is real popular in this neck of the woods and some of them get to be respectable size - (nothing like catching a one pound gil on a flyrod!) - and no doubt I do more of this fishing then any other. Like the old saying goes …“when they are biting, they are, and when they are not, they’re not”. When they are biting and I’m using a popper, they will hit ferously; and will tear that popper up in a morning or afternoon’s fishing. But when it’s one of those periods that’s “in between” the biting and not biting episodes is when I have noted they will take the popper just under the water and release it … I call it “sampling”. You have to be on your toes (what’s our motto “tight lines”), and what I do after I cast the popper out and it lands on the water is point the tip of my rod right at the popper and take up the slack line; and when there’s any kind of “hanky-panky” going on with the popper I’ll do a real quick strip retrieve and sometimes I manage to hook one of those samplers.