"The Morning Hatch" is a daily dose of anything fly fishing, human interest, and sometimes from left field. It will be short, ...

Fly fishing for bluegill isn’t just fun, it's deadly effective, but don’t get greedy. Help yourself to a nice meal of bluegill fillets now and then, but give big bluegills the same respect you ...

Our backyard pond, like any other, provides a smorgasbord of seafood for a variety of hungry predators that prowl the banks and shallows of this watery buffet. Bluegill sunfish, bass, small fry ...

In our area, a thick 8-inch bluegill is a good catch; a 9-incher special and a 10-incher a near trophy. If you have a pond or lake that produces bluegill of that quality, enjoy something special.

I cast my fly and let it sit on the surface of the deep water and wait. The wind lulls and the pond’s surface turns to glass. The eruption of the strike shatters it.

An 11-inch bluegill is an exceptional fish in our area. Last year I caught seven over the 11-inch award minimum, my best year ever on “really big” bluegills.

My love for fishing began on a farm pond in New York. It's my first fishing memory. My sister and I caught bluegills using cane poles and red plastic worms. From then on, I was hooked.

When it comes to bluegills, three flies which date back to my beginnings in the late 60s still rate right up there with the best. They are, the McGinty, the Ant and the green sponge rubber Spider.

Gilly gilly. August Bach of Reinbeck poses with a giant bluegill before releasing it Jan. 19 in a Keokuk County farm pond. (Orlan Love/correspondent) ...

Farm ponds also produce big fish. A farm pond produced a former Iowa state record largemouth that weighed more than 10 pounds. Iowa's bluegill record stands at 3 pounds, 2 ounces.

Getting a little bored of reeling in bluegill after bluegill, Henry decided he wanted to try for one of the largemouth bass that also reside in our pond.

A summer of catching sunnies and bluegill at the paper mill ponds, and I was hooked (so to speak) for life. I wish I could go back and say thank you. All I can do now is to enjoy my time on the ...