Late summer isn’t thought of as a peak period to target bluegills, a species commonly associated with shallow-water action during the spring. But in the right situation, August is a prime time to contact some of the biggest ‘gills of the year.

One scenario which lends itself to big late-summer bluegills is found in the deeper zones of natural lakes. According to seasoned panfish enthusiast and former guide Darl Black, it’s an opportunity many anglers are not aware of, ones accustomed to only fishing for bedding ‘gills.

“I stumbled upon this deep-water bluegill gig years ago on a Canadian lake while on vacation,” he recalls. “Back home in Northwestern Pennsylvania, I realized the biggest bluegills (and pumpkinseeds) of the entire season could be caught during the summer from deep water.”

Black has found that the best late-summer bluegill lakes are those that feature decent-sized bluegills, not ones with an abundance of smaller, stunted fish. Though he’s contacted bigger summer ‘gills in reservoirs, he’s had better experiences on clear-water natural lakes boasting an abundance of submergent weedgrowth and structure such as points, humps, saddles and ridges.

So how deep are summer bluegills commonly caught? Black says it depends on the physical characteristics of the lake, most likely a relation to the depth of the thermocline. In general, he finds the 15- to 25-foot range most productive. But in deeper, colder bodies of water, such as the Finger Lakes in New York where the thermocline runs deeper, summer ‘gills can be taken in even deeper water. He hasn’t found shallower, dishpan-shaped natural lakes to be productive.

The window of opportunity for late-summer bluegills can be rather narrow. In Black’s experience, the fish tend to suddenly appear. It’s common, he says, for the deep-water zone to be absent of fish in early to mid-July, and for them to be found in abundance overnight later in the month. And their exit in September can be just as abrupt.

All things being equal, deep-water fishing isn’t as efficient as shallow-water fishing, so it’s not surprising that a significant portion of time is spent searching for fish, a process made much more productive with quality sonar.

“A reliable paper map is helpful, but if you don’t have a good sonar unit, you’re not going to be able to pinpoint the hard-bottom humps, points and saddles,” he noted. “A very good sonar unit, such as my Garmin GPSMAP 7608xvs, will show you much more, including packs of bluegills moving through the water column. Without a reliable sonar unit, the only option is to slow drift through areas where hard-bottom structure might be.”

Adapting a strategy common in deep-water bassin’, Black often utilizes a downsized-drop shot rig to effectively present some form of jig/bait to ‘gills and ‘seeds. A common setup is a 1/32-ounce jighead (with a #10, 8 or 6 hook) dressed with a ¾- or 1-inch grub body. This is tipped with a mealworm or a couple of maggots.

If live bait is not available, he’ll opt for a one-inch Gulp Minnow, Fry or Leech. He leaves about eight to ten inches of tag from the Palomar knot (that secures the jig) to which a snap swivel is tied. A 1/4, 3/8 or 1/2-ounce (depending on depth and/or wind conditions) bell sinker is clipped to the snap to complete the drop-shot rig.

Going vertical is often the best way to target deep water fish and it’s the approach Black takes around 80 percent of the time. Working from the transom of his tiller-controlled boat, he slowly works over deep-water structure while keeping an eye on the screen of his sonar unit. He commonly throws a camouflaged floating marker buoy as a point of reference so he can precisely work the surrounding water without losing focus on the screen.

“Deep-summer bluegills on the lakes I fish are always moving in packs, roaming around structure and up and down in the water column, chasing food I guess,” Black says. “When I intercept a pack, they hit like crazy. It’s not uncommon to hook three fish with three anglers in the boat.”

Though he mostly fishes vertically, on calm days Black will cast 1/8-ounce jigs, incorporating a variety of retrieves — including on-the-bottom drags, lift-drop and mid-column swimming — across structure, noting that during calm conditions, ‘gills tend to be scattered, not forming feeding packs.

Black recommends the release of larger 9.5- to 11-inch bluegills, the fish most important to the health of a quality-sized fishery, encouraging the harvest of mid-sized fish if one chooses to eat a few.

Jeff Knapp is an outdoors columnist for the Butler Eagle