Dave Genz is the founder of Ice Team. He and his posse are on the cutting edge of ice-fishing knowledge. Photo by Noel Vick

Freakishly large creatures are intriguing by nature. A 25-pound wild turkey does it for some folks. For others, it takes 300 pounds of white-tailed deer. But I dare say, a genuine pound of bluegill lights up the eyes of anyone lucky to see it, let alone catch such a beast.

That's the fish of dreams -- 16 ounces of slab-sided bluegill. It barely fits in your palm. Heck, it barely fits in a dream!

So what's an angler to do? Spend the next umpteen years chasing the white elephant? That's not to say you'll never catch a "pounder," because they are out there. But on the average outing to the average lake, it's a long shot.

With that said, however, Ice Team's Brian Brosdahl submits his criterion for building better bluegills. First and foremost, Brosdahl endorses diversity, as in where they live. Brosdahl looks for lakes with features unimaginable: a fusion of emergent and submerged weeds, deep basins, offshore rock structure, sprawling flats and plenty of food, some of which can be unorthodox.

For example, scuds -- also known as freshwater shrimp -- quickly add to a bluegill's waistline, as do small young-of-the-year yellow perch. Brosdahl says that juvenile perch are a link in an important but seldom-acknowledged food chain. Small perch eat bluegill fry like they're going out of style, in turn culling overabundances of bluegills that would otherwise be in competition. On the flipside, alpha bluegills munch down tiny perch like cocktail wienies. Yes, broad-shouldered bluegills are quite carnivorous.

Brosdahl can't say enough about weeds and overall lake fertility. Sterility and "bluegill-ity" don't go hand in hand. The littoral zone -- water less than 15 feet deep -- constitutes 50 percent or more of the acreage on the typical Brosdahl-targeted lake. More shallows translate into more weeds, and normally more "waterlife," namely edible zooplankton. By winter, depending on the lake, the bulk of the weeds could be down, but they played an important role during every minute of their existence. On a clear lake where the weeds grow deep, some if not most may make it through the winter, providing sanctuary and foraging grounds.

Weed variety is beneficial, too. Brosdahl speaks of places yielding a blend of surface hardstem bulrushes, wild rice and lily pads, all living in harmony amongst cabbage, coontail and even sandgrass. But when the rubber meets the road, he's got a weakness for cabbage, nasty, thick beds that are as big as a garage and that rise to or near the surface. They're best when linked to other beds, thus creating a colony.

When asked whether predators factor in, Brosdahl said, "Absolutely!" Herds need to be thinned for select bluegills to grow. Brosdahl likes lakes with giant pike, small- to medium-sized largemouth bass and -- sorry to say -- dogfish. Adult pike eat their fair share of "average-sized" bluegills, infrequently swallowing wide-bodied bulls. Non-trophy-class bass eat a lot of smallish bluegills, too. Again, the school is sacrificed for the growth of some, and those relics that time forgot -- dogfish -- also consider small- to medium-sized bluegills a delicacy.

And this brings us to "your" lake. She's plump full of bluegills, but is not known for giving up size. "Big," then, is a relative term. If half-pounders are at the top of the curve, they're your alphas. Don't settle for smaller fish. Leave the dinks to the weekenders, and plan to catch two fish for every pound of bluegill.

Before throwing out a list of possible spots that may or may not match the lake in question, it's prudent to consider windows, or time frames. What's the best time for plucking bulls? Brosdahl says early ice and late ice, with an emphasis on the latter. Full moon? It's a big deal to Brosdahl. With complete decisiveness, he claims that the moon's power when full or nearly fully beckons big bluegills to bite. The morning and evening splurges are strongest. On a clear night when the moon is whole, Brosdahl stays the course and catches fish deep into the darkness.

Okay, say it's midwinter, and the moon is weeks from being full. Throw in the towel? Nah. Now it gets down to spots, big-fish spots. First amongst them are rockpiles, as in the walleye-looking stuff. Don't go to the rocks looking for numbers, though. It's quality over quantity. Brosdahl prefers rockpiles that sport weeds over their crowns, but vegetation isn't mandatory. He also favors loose, chunky rock bottoms over round, symmetrical boulders. He theorizes that more crayfish and insect life reside amongst the busted pieces.