Panfish fishing before ice up ??

From now till the lakes ice up, will there be any good fishing for Bluegills or Crappies?
You need to wear life jackets/preservers from Nov. till April for fishing in a boat.
I've still got some crawlers that I picked up this spring. Save them for icefishing?
I suppose ice jigs and grubs would be the thing to use. Right?
Just wondering....any thoughts??
 

We have been doing very well on bullgills up to & over 11",also doing well on Crappie,tho not the # of slabs that we usualy get this time of year. As a bonus doing o.k. on perch, although I am fishing a little high for them.Water temps are great for most everything now so it's hard to pick.Very seldom do I mess with bait when plastic works so well most of the time.When the water gets colder try fishing closer to the top. Esp. keep an eye out for bugs rising ion the early afternoon. Then about 4pm things normaly pick up,just like on the ice. btw was surprised to hook a bluegill about 1/2" also a small bass about 4".  sam

Hey Mr. Crappie - Any chance of a foto or two of one of those 11"+ bluegills your getting ? I got one just over 9" this past summer and I thought that was a big gill....

I'm 60 years old and fish some of the best public and private lakes in Pa. and only get  a handful of Gills over 10 inches every year,!00's from 9 to 9.5 but not many 10's not to mention 11 plus.

I'm 68 yrs old ....I still ain't never seen an 11" + bluegill caught in Pa...I haven't even seen a 10" gill..I know you guys don't want to disclose your hot spots...so maybe you could just lay one of them 10"-11" bluegills on a ruler and take a picture of it for me...That's the only way I guess I'll ever see one...

I've stocked Georgia giants hybrid bluegills in my pond that grow over 3#s...The largest I've ever seen was one a hair over 10" and a hair under 2#. Not saying it's not possible, just that I'd like to see an 11"+ gill in PA.

I was fishing a local sportsmans club pond that gets stocked with trout. Got a few gills at 8-9 inch while targeting them. But the 11 inch was on a larger in line spinner i was throwing for trout. Seems i catch fish like that while not targeting them with "traditional" baits. The biggest crappie i ever got in PA was at Keystone Lake and i took the kids bass fishing with shiners, 16.25 inch.
 

".but me thinks some of these guys have "elastic" measuring tapes...you can kind of make that fish "grow" a cupple inches simply by pulling the ends of the tape...if you get my drift..."
 
That would actually make the fish measure SMALLER. Think about it.

The big one was 12" and weighed almost 2#.
 

 

 
This is Greggy and I after a day gillin'. Many of these gills are over 10".

Sam, my son and I had a blast! With all of the stuff he's dealing with, fishing really seems to calm him down. He's caught plenty of 11" gills. I'm really suprised that so many people on here have never seen a gill bigger than 10".  Here's a tip: If you are into the gills and using little bait, you will catch little gills. Try fishing a medium fathead on a 1/32oz jighead for gills. Also try a 1" Gulp Alive minnow. Bigger baits will get you bigger gills. A smaller bait will get nailed by all of the dinks before a bigger fish has a chance to grab it.  
 
I agree that this has been a great year for gills. I can't wait to try them out under the ice. This time of year they are a lot deeper than they are throughout the year. I'll look in 12-15 FOW right now if I'm targeting big gills. There are still plenty of them out there.

The best advice I can give you is to fish your bait on a small jig head below a slip bobber. Try different depths until you find them. Fish off-shore brushpiles and structure if you can find it. Try minnows, Gulp Alive Minnows, maggots, mealworms, redworms, and waxworms.

btw completely missed the pics before I posted last, but that's a bad as$ group of gills you got there! NICE CATCH and always good to see the kids having a blast.

Bull Lifter

Those are some nice gills slab daddy. but i'd rather see a tape measurement then a cope can.
just saying. 

LOL! I gotcha. It's just that I don't always have a tape, but I ALWAYS got my Cope! I know where there are a few more that size and bigger. I'm hoping to hit them through the ice with my boys. I've been promising them an ice fishing trip for two years now. Hopefully we get some ice this year and I can get them all the way in to my secret spot. I'm not walking 2 miles down a lake to get there. If I can't find an overland route, those gills will wait til the spring. When I get more, I'm gonna make sure that I get pics with a ruler.
 
I know a very public lake that has lots of 10" gills. IDK why nobody targets them. I guess everyone is too busy chasing perch and slabs. I bet there's more meat on a 10" gill than there is on a 12" crappie.

That Gill that you think is 12" and 2 lbs is not, maybe a 10 and weigh 12-14 oz. I caught plenty 9.5 -10.25 and never had one weigh ove 1.25 lbs. I don't post pics but my son does,I'll post pics with the tape next to them,and show you a ten. I fish deep water weed line throught the ice 12-15 fow and caught hundereds of bulls through the ice every year but there 9.5 -10 every year and not many 10's like manybe 3 or 4 a season,and maybe big bait is good for you but not for me.I fish gin clear water and Gill Pill in size 14 work well on wise bulls,also fish a lot of plastics fished clean on 100oz jig heads,and seldon fish mono over 1 or 2 lb test. Go to ICESHANTY.COM  our pics are under Captain 54 or Bull Lifter.

Pachuckles

From now till the lakes ice up, will there be any good fishing for Bluegills or Crappies?
You need to wear life jackets/preservers from Nov. till April for fishing in a boat.
I've still got some crawlers that I picked up this spring. Save them for icefishing?
I suppose ice jigs and grubs would be the thing to use. Right?
Just wondering....any thoughts??
 
  From the last week in Oct. 'til the 2nd week ov Nov. caught well over 800 slabs, 150 Perch, many L/M over 17" some Pike a few Gills & some Cats in the 28 - 32" range.  Didn't get out much after that but the bite was still purdy good when made  the time to get out.
 
crappy