Learn to Use Fire Dye Worms To Catch Big Bluegill

By: Kyle Deavers

We all know that catching bluegill isn’t difficult. Anyone can do it. I’ve been fun-fishing for bluegill my entire life and have never struggled to get bit. Meanwhile, catching hand-size bluegill can be a challenge. Recently, I’ve been venturing out and experimenting to find better ways to catch larger bluegill and have found that dying pieces of worms different colors is helping to convince those larger bluegill to bite.

We’ve always caught big bluegill using different color plastic worms, but I’ve found that dying live worms different colors is more effective. Lately, I’ve been using more chartreuse, which is easy to do with Chartreuse Fire Dye. As with all bluegill fishing you don’t need an entire night crawler, rather small two-to-three-inch pieces. I dye the entire worm and then break it into chunks. This way one night crawler goes a long way.

Dying the worms couldn’t be simpler. However, you don’t want to submerge the worms in the Fire Dye or they will die, just like they would if you drown them in water. What I do is take a worm container and dump out the dirt. I’ll then rinse the worms off so there is no mud and place them back in the container. Then, I’ll squeeze enough Fire Dye in there to cover their bellies. I’ll let them move around for roughly 30 minutes in the dye. At that point they’ll take the color and it won’t wash off. There might be a few worms that do die, but they still work. You’ll only need to use about 1/8 of the bottle to dye the worms. It doesn’t take much to dye them. One bottle can do about eight containers.

When fishing for slab-size bluegill I use six-pound monofilament line with a size eight worm hook. I’ll fish the worm under a four-gram float. I always fish the worm half the depth of the water you’re fishing. So, if you’re in 10 feet of water you’ll want the worm to be in five feet, and so on.

This time of year bluegill will be close to the shoreline. I often find them in two-to-four feet of water, but generally they’ll be most prominent near all weeds. Because the water is warmer they’ll be aggressive all day. You don’t have to get there at sunlight to get bit. They are fairly easy to catch, which is why it’s so much fun to bring kids to catch bluegill and hook them on fishing.

Editor’s Note: Kyle Deavers operates Big Boy Fishing. To learn more about him please visit https://www.facebook.com/Bigboyfishing. Fire Dye is available at Walmart and Bass Pro Shops.