Trolling for 'gills is an anytime, anywhere game

For all the surveys that show bass are anglers' top targets, for all the publications about walleyes and angling societies centered around trout, America's top fish is the bluegill.

More anglers spend more time chasing bluegills than any other freshwater finster. There are plenty of reasons; not only are bluegills almost ubiquitous, they are plentiful in most waters, generally sport liberal creel limits, are typically open year-round and are generally free of size limits. But they have a couple more positive characteristics: They are usually willing to bite and they make it worth firing up the frying pan as well as any species (and better than most).

What probably makes bluegills so popular is that fishing for them is so decidedly low tech. Oh, you can use a fly rod if you like, but most anglers fish for ‘gills with live bait and the biggest decision they face is whether or not to use a bobber.

But anglers who are willing to expand their techniques can add to their enjoyment -- not to mention their fish baskets -- by employing a technique more commonly associated with larger game fish: trolling.

Denny Hettig, a lifelong angler from southwest Michigan, has perfected a method for trolling for bluegills that has always worked everywhere he's tried it. Hettig, who got the idea from walleye trolling, uses a down-sized harness -- similar to a two-hook crawler harness but much smaller -- that he ties to fit red worms.

Hettig‘s harness is tied on a 30-inch length of four-pound monofilament. He uses a pair of No. 6 steelhead hooks (which are sharper and stronger than most panfish hooks, he said) a couple of inches apart, a single small spinner blade and a few tiny beads. He likes a nickel spinner on bright days, a gold spinner on dark days and says bead colors don't matter.

As for where to fish, Hettig says anywhere: He generally gets the boat off the trailer, drops the trolling motor and starts fishing. About the only time he uses the outboard is when the weather turns sour and he wants to get off the lake in a hurry.

Hettig doesn't bother looking for structure or cover; he just starts fishing until he hits fish and then notes what's happening. And it changes, not only from day to day, but throughout the course of a day's fishing. But truth is, he rarely bothers to home in on them because he catches fish all over the lake.

The keys are trolling slowly and adjusting the amount of line he has out and the amount of weight he attaches to the line.

"I have been experimenting with more weight this year," said Hettig, a retiree who fishes about every other day and has been refining his technique for five years. "And it seems like the heavier weights are catching bigger fish. I use everything from a 1/64th on up to 3/8ths, but the only time I use those 64ths is real, real, real early in the season."

Hettig uses pencil weights that he attaches to his four-pound test mainline on a snap swivel, above the harness. (He has used split shot in the past, but finds it easier to change sinkers than adding or subtracting shot.) The distance he trolls behind the boat depends on water clarity -- the clearer the water, the further back he trolls -- but as long as the bait's a good cast behind the boat, he's happy.

I've fished with Hettig a number of times over the years and can attest to his technique. We've never spent more than a couple of hours on the water before we had a live well full. Generally we fish from 20 to 60 feet of water, so we're usually a fair distance from any weed lines, and I've never noticed that the results had any relationship to bottom structure.

Hettig moseys along; he says .8 miles per hour seems to be optimum. If he's fishing with a partner, he'll put out four lines (all with different weights on them) and says he'll go to whatever is working that day. But truth be told, we've never adjusted that way any time I've fished with him because it hasn't much mattered; the fishing's always been fast enough and on all rods. Making adjustments hasn't been necessary.

Hettig, who makes his harnesses commercially (Bo's Bluegill Busters, named after his old Labrador retriever, who used to fish with him) and they're sold in bait shops around southwest Michigan. He says the keys are quality components and using the No. 6 hooks. "You can go to a smaller hook, a size 8, but then you have issues with fish swallowing the hooks. You wind up killing too many fish."

That's not an issue for most anglers, but Hettig releases more than he keeps. He likes fish in the seven- to eight-inch size range because they're big enough to filet, but are the better for eating than the bigger ones. He returns the larger fish (as well as the smaller ones, unless they're hooked deeply) because the big fish are too valuable to the population to take them out.

"So far this year I've caught two 11-inch fish and I've probably caught 40 10s," Hettig told me one late July day. "But I fish 15 days a month. And everything's got to be right to catch those big fish. That's a 7- or 8-year-old fish. Maybe more."

Hettig says fishing usually improves as the day progresses.

"I catch my biggest fish up in the day," he said. "You can catch fish all day and the later it gets, the better it gets. Cloudy days are better than bright sunshiny days."

Not that I noticed. Fact is, last time I fished with him we were back at the ramp and leaving the lake by 10 a.m. on a day when there wasn't a cloud in the sky. And we'd spanked them.

Hettig's system may not be entirely idiot-proof, but it's about as close as it can get. He likes long limber rods, but only because they're more fun.

"You can catch them on a Snoopy rod doing this," he said. "I have; I bought one at a garage sale, brought it out here with the same line that was on it, and started catching fish."

Hettig will gladly share his "secrets" with anyone, but he asks that folks act responsibly as his technique could be devastating to a lake if someone were to fish it regularly and keep all the fish.

"When you're doing this, you're picking off your active bluegills from all over the lake," said Hettig, as he keeps the boat moving with the trolling motor. "When you're tight-lining them, you're on a school of fish and you're just pounding that school. Doing this, I might take six or seven out of a school, but by then I'm off somewhere else."

The only thing Hettig hasn't accomplished with his technique is catch a monster -- an honest 12-inch bluegill. But he's convinced his technique will work on any deep-water lake and that if he just keeps after it and tries enough lakes, eventually he'll find that 12-incher.

"I'll get one," he said. "And when I do, that one's going on the wall."

And I for one wouldn't bet against him.