Colorado’s Biggest Bluegill EVER

When fishing, it can sometimes pay to expect the unexpected. So when Gregory Wallace went fly fishing for pike last week and hooked a blonky bluegill, he held onto that huge panfish.

Gregory Wallace set out to catch some pike on a fly rod the week of June 12, 2019 at Totten Reservoir in the Southwest corner of the state. He unexpectedly tied into a Colorado state record fish in the process, although not a pike.

Wallace now holds the state record for bluegill with a fish that measured 12 3/4 inches long and weighed 2 pounds, 9 1/2 ounces. He caught the fish on a sculpinator pattern while targeting pike.

This huge bream topped the old record by 4 ounces in weight, and a full two inches in length!

Although this is a huge bluegill, it’s still two pounds shy of the world record bluegill, which weighed in at 4 pounds, 12 ounces and was caught back in 1950, according to the International Game Fish Association. Sadly, there are no known photographs of that big slab.

Congrats Greg! Hope you caught up with some pike too.

Russ Chastain

Editor & Contributing Writer Russ Chastain is a lifelong hunter and shooter who has spent his life learning about hunting, shooting, guns, ammunition, gunsmithing, reloading, and bullet casting. He started toting his own gun in the woods at age nine and he's pursued deer with rifles since 1982, so his hunting knowledge has been growing for more than three and a half decades. His desire and ability to share this knowledge with others has also grown, and Russ has been professionally writing and editing original hunting & shooting content since 1998. Russ Chastain has a passion for sharing accurate, honest, interesting hunting & shooting knowledge and stories with people of all skill levels.