everythingthatswims

I'm not too far south of you, and I have been fishing ponds very extensively for the past month or so. The fish have been hit or miss, the only way to catch them has been with crankbaits, until today and yesterday. They FINALLY started eating plastics. I just texas rigged a U-tale worm with a 1/16oz weight and hopped it along the bottom, caught 8 in 2 hours this evening and should have caught way more, they aren't really eating the whole bait though, and I was missing a lot of fish even after giving them 30 seconds after the strike. All of my fish were in 3 feet of water and less, holding either close to the bank or on brush (I sunk my own brush piles this winter haha). If the fish are still not feeding much where you are, use an ultralight and throw rebel floaters (2.5") or rebel teeny wee-rs...For some reason the way those baits run absolutely ticks off pre spawn bass in ponds, I have tried many other brands but I keep coming back to the rebels (walmart has a sale on them right now too, 1.50 each). If you see the bass sunning themselves, fish for something else haha

I think the concept of farming huge fish is awesome, however, I think that the "farmers" should take it upon themselves to not submit those fish for a world record. I fish a pond with fish that get fed pellets on a regular basis, and that is a blast, but I appreciate "wild" fish more.

I fished some ponds in north myrtle beach last week on vacation (ocean was too cold, not much going on in terms of saltwater fishing) and absolutely destroyed the bass, some were even post spawn already. Caught fish on just about everything, including topwaters. Weird that your fish are still waking up from the winter shutdown/slowwwwdown.

Well hopefully I can quit worrying about sunning fish, went to my neighbor's pond today and the bass were chasing bluegill on the banks constantly. I threw everything I had including a zara puppy which worked for me last year in early april, but the only thing they would hit today was a weightless finesse worm. I had trouble hooking them because they would only eat half the bait even after I gave them 15-20 seconds. Leaving a soft plastic in a bass's mouth for longer than that just worries me, I don't like gut hooking them. I bet by Saturday they will be on beds or VERY close. All the fish I saw were in 3 FOW and less, this is only a 3 acre pond though.

Maybe it's a Virginia thing... I have seen this many times in many ponds here, as you said, right before the fish go on beds. It's easier to catch them in 40 degree water than it is to catch them while they are sunning (on most days). Eating seems to be a low priority when they are sunning

I haven't seen this in lakes before, but in ponds in my area in early spring, the fish will school up when it's warm out and sit just a few inches below the surface. When this happens, they spook when anything moves/hits the water for the most part. The only way I have been able to consistently catch them is with a fly rod, using flies size 14-18 and can usually catch bluegill, crappies, and smaller largemouth. However, when a big bass is sunning itself, I have found it to be impossible to get them to eat. Does anyone else have experience with this?

I have been to this particular pond (about 2-3 acres) twice...The owners don't know a thing about fish, and they stocked bass, channel cats, and hybrid bluegill. So after a few years, they have decent sized catfish (not sure what they eat), a few GIANT bluegill, and hundreds of small bass, since hybrid bluegill are sterile, the bass don't have a food source, but since bluegill eat small aquatic invertebrates, they don't struggle at all to get big. Even though all the bass are under 2 pounds, the fishing is hilarious. We (my brothers and friends) can literally use any bait and absolutely slay them, usually a fish every cast. When you unhook a fish and release it, you can cast to that same fish and it will eat again like nothing happened! And there are 12" bluegill mixed in, it's pretty crazy watching a bluegill eat a super fluke.

Yea haha compress is a better word for it. That has actually been my experience with braid on all my spinning rods too (I don't use it on baitcasters), not just UL. A 150 yard spool of 10lb power pro will not completely fit on my sahara 3000, although it gets pretty close. Shimano's website says a 3000 sahara holds 235 yards of 10lb PP...I use backing, but only about 10 yards of 8lb mono

My main problem with braid is that despite the thin diameter, you don't have the same line capacity since braid doesn't "squish" like mono. I like using my UL for bluefish and spanish mackerel when I'm at the beach, but it worries me when I only have about 70-80 yards of 6lb braid on the reel, even though it is 2lb mono diameter. This reel holds 150 yards of 4lb mono