hooah212002

Can you get a topo map of the lake? If so, find any points, humps, submerged islands, ANYTHING that the fish might cling to. Still no structure? You'll need one of them fancy fish finders with the cameras or what have you and go out and find the fish. Look for submerged vegetation, submerged trees, channels and things of that nature. bass don't hang out in open water, so they will cling to whatever is our of the ordinary.

Don't rule out a Powell Diesell for $69.99 at TW. BassPro has rod socks that you (should) could use to easily identify. That way you get the added bonus of having your rods protected. Not sure off hand how many different colors there are, though (basspro.com and my work computer don't mix well).

Doesn't it depend on what state you are in? or is there a seperate governing body for the Great Lakes? I would imagine if you in a harbor in IL, you are subject to IL laws/regulations. I am ready to be wrong, though.

HA! 55 is shorts and t-shirt weather. Flip flops, even. It's not cold unless it's sub-zero.

Indeed. I found that out and will have to wait until I get home because I can't install Google Earth at work.

1: no springs that I could see, but I did not look very hard. It is surrounded by farm land. The road leading up to it splits off into a gov't run area that is gated off. 2: I did look for no trespassing signs and found none. There is a road leading up to it (you can see my little Aveo there in the picture). This body of water is as far as cars can go, then it is barricaded off for a walking trail that IS owned by the state. 3: I do see it on google maps, but I did not know you can go back to see the history. i will do that. It is not named on the map, though.

I found a pond that looks perfect for fishing! Except...I don't know if it has fish, if it is anything more than a big puddle or just what is left of a flood. It is out in the middle of nowhere, away from traffic and away from most civilization (a rarity around here). It is just off of a nature trail, but not marked for fishing (there is actually NO signage whatsoever). It is full of shoreline grass to give decent cover. It appears to be fairly deep. I stopped today and tossed a few baits for maybe 30 minutes (jig, fluke and spinnerbait) and even though the water is pretty clear, I didn't see a single fish. Not even a minnow. There were turtles, though, so that seems to say the water isn't too awful toxic (unless those turtles were named Raphael and Leonardo). The only explanation I can come up with is that it could be just a hole that was dug for dirt. My question to you guys: what are some key things to look for to detemine if a body of water has fish? I am in a never ending quest to find "off the map" fishing holes because the top quality lakes around here aren't friendly to shore fishing, so this info would go pretty far. I want to stop and aska few farmers to fish their pond, but I would rather not get laughed at. Or worse: they let me fish there even though they know it's just runoff. here is a panorama:

I had to go to a swivel because I got really bad line twist today even though I had braid (with a fluoro leader). As soon as I tied on the swivel, I had no more line twist. And for the guy(s) that said "if you get line twist, you're working it too fast": that's how they have wanted it. I tried everything today and they wanted "pop-pop-reel, pop-pop-reel" quickly. I tried a bunch of retrieves, but that's what worked. It twisted up my line, but it worked.

Dang man. This right here has been money for me this past week since you told me. I already had shad color and baby bass, but not a green type color. I've caught more fish this week alone on watermelon flukes than all of last year (although what I gain in numbers I lost in size. All of them have been dinks.). Big thanks man!

If you go to their website, you can get a free pack of them after a moderate length survey. Takes a bit to receive them, but hey, free hooks with a high MSRP.

I thought this was how bass entice humans to mate with them, but I guess my mind is in the wrong end of the gutter......

not the carp in your pond what? I never said they don't ever eat stuff off the surface because obviously that is false. I said they are bottom feeders and if you want an easier time catching one, put a worm on a hook and let it sit on the bottom. Or you can keep trying different ways to catch carp with lures on top of the water.

Carp are bottom feeders. Put a nightcrawler on a hook, maybe a bobber so you can see the bite better, and throw it in the water. You'll catch one. Though, I guess catching a carp on topwater would be.... neat.

HA! Too true. The spot I fish from shore always has boats pull up and the guys look at their electronics and get all wide eyed because there are actually tons of fish there. they pop trolling motor down and start casting (a little too close to me, if you don't mind my say so). Too bad they're mostly carp. If they had their polarized glasses on they'd realize that.

http://www.bassresource.com/fish/article_submission.html

I hadn't thought of that and it is a good possibility. Oh well, too late now. I prefer having braid as a mainline. Much easier to manage.

I'm with ya there lol. I cannot seem to keep my bait low when either flipping or pitching. It ends up swinging around really high in the air which then causes major backlash.

Thanks for the tips guys. A few of you mentioned trolling the line out: I cannot do that since I don't have a boat. Instead, I switched out the Senshi for some Power Pro. I took it out last night for maybe 30 minutes in the cold and rain and got zero line twist (at least not the sort that makes a huge clump just off the reel like with the Senshi).

That has a really weird coloration to it.

The only problem with that is the place I fish has A LOT of grass and moss. I don't yet have a BC that will throw something as light as a fluke.

I switched to 8# Seaguar Senshi last night on my spinning rod because the 6# Sufix Elite I had on was obnoxiously stretchy (lost a couple fish this week due to it). Well, I went out today and 3 times my line got twisted up REALLY bad. I had to cut off maybe 30 yards each time. I put KVD L&L on last night when I was spooling it up, as well as before going out this morning. I never had trouble with the Elite, but I don't know if it was because I worked the fluke faster today, with the Senshi, than I did before with the Elite. I can't exactly afford to keep wasting line. I liked the Elite well enough but it was way too stretchy for the spot I usually fish. I was not using a swivel. Mind you, I did not fish today for very long at all (an hour total, tops), so it wasn't line twist that built up from fishing a fluke for 8 hours straight. tl;dr: is it the line or the fluke causing terrible line twist? I know baits like flukes are known to cause line twist, but this seems excessive.

Awesome suggestions guys. A hearty thanks to all of you. Here, have an e-beer on me