N00B

Kicker I fish both, but sometimes i like bluegill just as much. Dink i like sight fishing, but i try this method as well. Yeah they expensive though so i switched to cheaper alternative like hotdogs pieces, bluegill comes for bare hook sometimes when you just start, but later on they they get cautious they will stop eating anything, perhaps live bait is the answer here, will try this next time i go to clear water lake thanks a lot.

In that artificial lake they all mixed up big and small hang out together. This bluegills mostly small they cannot get anything bigger than 1/4 of an inch in their mouth so size 1.5" crank-bait would not work here. Fly fishing sure thing maybe later now i learning the basics and i don't want to jump trough many valuable lessons straight to fly fishing. Issue 2, bluegills usually jump up the regular #14 hook with tiny bit of hotdog and i get hooked within a second, however after i pull about 5-10 from school and throw them far away since water is clear others see whats going on and start to be cautious they don't bite hook anymore. Moving to new spot and the picture is exactly the same, at first they fighting for this sausage on the hook then after a witnessing me pooling their friend out of the water they loose all interest even free flowing pieces of sausage gets ignored and some lazy bluegill comes and eats it slowly, making sure its not a trap while others just stay away. I can raise interest in them if i keep throwing free pieces, but even if they start being active and i throw 5 free pieces my hook in between they never go for the hook, just eat free stuff and go away. Issue 3 when i use #10 circle-hook (gold plated or regular color) even tiny bluegills swallowing it most of the time, when i use #14 J-hooks they almost always hook by the mouth whats the thing here?

I picked up on fishing week ago started with 7ft medium rod then 6ft light rod then 2 ft toy rod and i like it even better for fishing bluegill by the shore. I fish in Los Angeles artificial lakes right now. Sight fishing bluegill by the shore about 1-2ft from surface is easy just casting any bait on the hook into the school gets instant bites from small (dumb) species in seconds, however bigger species of bluegill behave differently. They would rush to eat bait i free drop into water, however when i follow up with hooked version they rush to it, come close almost at the bite distance and then instantly swim away, i even tried smallest hook i have and covered it completely with meat, still same reaction, it must be the line they see, thinking on using 0.5lb mono versus 4lb i am currently use. Problem here is that big blue gill species in artificial lakes by the tame they mature are "trained" to avoid hooks by people who constantly catch them and release throughout their lifetime (same problem for bass in that lake), so fish gets too cautious. Any advice on how to catch this big "smarter" bluegills?