FishWitWiz

I have given up on Grove completely. Consistently non-productive for me and everyone I fish with. Fished a private pond near Oakland this morning, the 3 of us caught about 20 fish, mostly small. One of the other guys hooked into a monster but it managed to throw the hook at the bank. Dude is still angry about it.

Huge problem in Memphis. Met another BR member last weekend and was telling him about a pickup truck full of people who previously converged on the local pond and proceeded to keep every single fish they caught. If they saw an unrelated fisherman catch something they would run over and hassle him for the fish. Not 10 mins after this story, the pickup truck shows up and 5 people pile out. They had buckets and hit multiple ponds before showing up at that one.

Northern Watersnakes can be pretty aggressive and "bitey" when confronted, but like most snakes they generally want to avoid you as much as you want to avoid them. They have an anti-coagulent in their saliva, so if you get a bite on bare skin, it will bleed... a lot. Since they are often mistaken for venomous snakes, the "I just got bit by a snake AND I'm bleeding a bunch" tends to freak people out. New England is nice, not many venomous snakes and spiders. I lived there for a bunch. Come visit us in Memphis where everything and everyone is trying to kill you.

If you go to North or South Memphis to buy drugs, you might get stabbed or shot. If you park downtown and leave your wallet sitting on your console, it won't be there when you get back. If you go for a 3am stroll by the river, you might get mugged. Memphis is not much different than any other city. Bad stuff happens to people doing stupid and/or illegal stuff. I have lived here for 3 years after living in Philly and the NYC area and feel safer here than where we lived in Connecticut. Using your wits and watching your back is good advice no matter where you are.

Thanks for the clarification Roadwarrior and very glad to hear nothing was up. I will check in with my friend, not sure if the info came from an HOA email or what...

Guys, just heard that Grove Park in Germantown is closed until further notice. They found something in the water and have called in a biologist. I know this information is vague, but I have a friend who lives in the neighborhood and that's all I got in the way of info. If I get more I will pass it on.

Back to the Memphis ponds... went from super active to slow again after the couple days of rain. Daycare and Grove were both very active, we pulled out a couple nice fish last week. The last 3 days have produced nothing at all. Just left Daycare - a guy pulled up and dumped some fish in the pond while I was there.

Which local pond is he putting fish in??? I had given up on Neshoba based on the construction run off and the algaecide use last year.

Nice fish. What did you catch it with?

Is this where we say "pics or it didn't happen?" Kidding aside, that stinks. Last year we hiked a peak and when we got to the top, the camera didn't work. Managed to get a crappy cell phone pic. I have been hitting the Memphis ponds hard for the last 30 days and don't have much to show for it. Revisited your stickied thread and switched to the green senko last weekend which promptly produced a 3lb fish. You must have some other students... the ONLY color of 5" senko that is out of stock at BPS is the watermelon with black flakes.

I'm with you, it's been depressingly slow lately at the Memphis ponds. I fished Daycare and Grove last week, then Daycare again this Saturday morning, and this morning... one fish.

I hit Grove this morning - lots of guys fishing. Only saw one bass landed and it looked to be a nice one. The crappie guys were doing really well. Man, that cold wind was relentless. I had one good hit on a spinner, but otherwise got skunked.

I was there Saturday late afternoon and the little ones were hitting pretty hard, no big guys. The wind picked up a bit and I switched to a Johnson's Sprite to end the day, took a feisty 12-incher over by the Christmas tree. I've noticed the last few times that there's an increasing amount of garbage being left around the pond. Next time I'm going to bring a few trash bags with me and clean the place up, hopefully it lasts a while.

Memphis guys, where you at??? I know with a couple of the warm days we've had that some of you have hit some of the ponds. I fished Daycare Pond on Saturday morning for about 2 hours and caught 3 decent fish. Finished my morning with a nice 18-inch 5 pounder. There were a bunch of guys who showed up right before I left and they were fishing for the frying pan, so I let them have the pond.

There's a member here who took a monster bass there and has posted pics of it. Halle park pond hasn't produced anything for me the few times I've been there. Unless you count the middle-aged married woman hitting on me hard. It was not Brandi Glanville, so don't get too excited.

Yes, there's a defined trail around the Johnson Park "big pond" now. Fairly steady amount of hiking and biking traffic is helping to keep the weeds knocked down. Easiest way to access it is to park by the ball fields and walk the perimeter to a cutout in the woods that leads to the pond. It is a bit of a hike either way, and a generally steep and weedy climb down from the trail to the water. I've seen a few bobbers stuck on the brush dam, but never anyone fishing the pond. There's a "no boats" sign which is a shame because it'd be a great place to fish with a small canoe or kayak.

I fished Daycare Pond for about 3 hours this afternoon, struck out... 2nd time in a row. Anybody having any luck there?

If you do it right, you get them to "hunt" you which can be interesting at times. Once they realize you're not a wounded rabbit or fawn or catch human scent, they're outta there. I've only had one coyote actually make me wonder if it really wanted to eat me. I've seen a lot more fishing injuries (pride not included) than hunting though.

Hi everyone - I registered on the site a few nights ago after cruising through the Southeast region forum. Grew up in Philly, lived in Central Virginia, as well as New England before moving to Memphis about 2 years ago. Have been fishing all my life, though mostly saltwater surf & offshore in NJ, DE and MD. Recently flew my dad down for 2 days of fishing in the Gulf and had a blast catching red snappers, cobia, and drum near OBA. Never really got into freshwater much since I was a kid, but now that I'm landlocked in West TN, thought I'd give it a shot. The tips and info posted by some of my local Shelby County neighbors on this forum have proved to be a great start, so thanks are already in order. My main outdoor interests over the last 2 decades have been hunting and shooting. Spent a ton of time in the Northcentral PA (Tioga County) woods as well as the Adirondacks chasing whitetail bucks, but completely transitioned to predator and varmint hunting about 6 years ago. Nothing quite like hunting coyotes - makes deer hunting look easy!