I caught a new state yearly record.
- Thread starter Rtc/tsn
- Start date
Oh yeah. No luck with what you want, but a million of those guys...
Depends on the species of sunfish but bluegill can definitely reach 12+ inches. I've caught multiple bluegill in several different states bigger than 12 inches. Longears, red breast, etc... are the ones that don't get much bigger then 5-8 inches. And also the world record of the largest sunfish species the redear/shell cracker is 17 inches long with a 20 inch girth at 6.3 pounds!
Bluegill are generally caught at about 4-6” unless you’re in a creek finding catfish bait.
granted most big blugill and every bluegill over 12 inches I have caught have been in large rather secluded low pressure ponds or lakes.
Conditions have to be extremely generous for them to grow past 7-8”
not extremely actually. Just generous/normal ideal conditions will get them that big in time. I think most spots are just overfished and ****ty conditions
Around here the conditions have to be perfect for them to get bigger than 5”. Right now the lake has critically high E. Coli levels along with huge algae bloom and this happens maybe 2 times a year at the lake and it limits the sizes of fish greatly. The ponds near here that aren’t often fished or that have good quality water have fish that you would expect to find in the lake.
