Every year Jon Hedin and I head to the Grand Rapids area of Minnesota in search of what we call "bulls." A bull is a giant bluegill weighing over three-quarters of a pound. A true "double-hump bull" pushes the one-pound mark and is a fish every panfish angler dreams about.

The fishing was unbelievable. Nearly every cast with our fly rods produced another giant bull bluegill. For every three fish we landed, another double-hump bull seemed to be waiting. We could hardly believe what was happening.

Every ten or fifteen fish a muskie or northern pike would explode from beneath the boat and try to grab one of the bluegills as we reeled it in. Many of the bulls carried large scars from earlier attacks. We even caught glimpses of a few of the underwater monsters, but none stayed hooked to the bluegills long enough for us to land.

Then Jon hooked a monster crappie weighing nearly two pounds. We quickly switched from fly rods to ultralight tackle tipped with minnows and started catching what we called "crappie bulls."

A day filled with giant "bull" bluegills is one every angler remembers.

By the end of the afternoon we had landed sixteen crappies ranging from one and a half to two and a half pounds before finally running out of minnows.

We switched back to fly rods and continued catching giant bluegills. At one point I spotted what looked like a monster crappie nearly two feet long. Jon and I both cast flies right in front of it, but the giant fish ignored every presentation.

We looked at each other, laughed, and said, "Maybe next year."

By day's end we had each caught close to one hundred bull bluegills, kept sixty double-hump bulls and sixteen giant crappies. It was one incredible sunny-bull fishing day.