Are bream done spawning?
 

Went down for two days to Nickajack. Found lots of empty beds, a few with dinky bream on them, that was about it. Moon was right, wind was right, weather a bit cool, but it just wasn't happening. Do you think the spawn is over?

I'd say is close to over if not over already. Spring activity started much earlier than normal because of the warm winter we had. Look up Alphahawk and ask him, he is always after bluegills and tears them up using Trout Magnets. He would probably know best.

I imagine they are like bass since they're in the same family. Not all bass will spawn at the same time from region to region, lake to lake or even within a lake.

Keep looking for them through the next couple full moons.

Travis is right...look for them on or a few days before June 6th to go back on bed...but keep fishing for them. You might find them in deeper water just out from the beds. They are traveling right now...and this weather has not helped much with finding them this week.

Regards

Thanks, I'll keep looking for them back on the beds. Looks like PP might finally start to come up to summer pool after this rain.

Spawning bluegill seem to follow a lunar cycle in my experience. They peaked with the full moon that was on the first weekend of the month. There are some stragglers spawning now, but most of them will be smaller fish. I still have a few shellcracker beds that are active by my house (not gonna tell you where :p) but it's slowing down.

As noted, there will probably be a secondary spawn around the moon in June, and I've even seen a few shellcrackers and bluegill bed up in the Stones River tailwater in July. But the big push is probably done.

bd

Just an FYI guys who are interested.

I dropped by the "honey hole" today and noticed a bunch of nice gills back up shallow covering some beds. Will be a full moon again this week go get a few more before they all head deep.

I may have to get a report tomorrow on them...;)

There seems to be a pretty solid secondary spawn happening this year.

I was out fishing for a couple hours yesterday afternoon and found some good numbers of spawning shellcrackers in the 9.5 to 11 inch range. They were all bedded up in about 4 feet of water near willow grass beds.

I wasn't targeting bream yesterday, so I didn't stick around to fish them hard. I'm not sure how many I could have caught if I really stayed after them.

bd

I saw a video on myoutdoortv.com where they were using side imaging to find beds and that guy said they will actually come up and spawn regularly throughout the summer multiple times