BigMinnow

I have a few other places I fish and can reliably catch em. This pond is more of my personal challenge, and I want to see if I can figure out it’s secrets.

@Catt @Mobasser @Ski213 okay, I could see the majority of people were recommending t-rigged senkos so I’ll cave in. I bought some black, chartreuse, and white 4” and 5” senkos. Honestly, I have avoided fishing senkos for a long while so I’m rusty on technique. Since you guys were the first few to suggest them, would you mind sharing how you fish em? What kind of method do you use? Should I just cast past the strike zone and then just slowly drag it back? Pop the rod tip and jiggle it? Bullet weight or weightless? What works for you guys? I went out shopping yesterday, now im just waiting for a semi-nice day to get out and try these ponds! Excited to try all these new baits!

This is actually something I never even thought of trying. Definitely gonna give this one a go. I love a buzz bait bite, but can’t seem to make it happen on this pond. Nights are still a little chilly near me, but once it’s comfortable out it’s game on!! Never had much luck with top waters in this pond, but you’re not wrong! Top water is hands down the most fun way to fish. I’ll give the hula poppers a try early morning or late evening sometime soon. It’s funny that you say that. Just the other day my buddy and I were CRUSHING them on whopper ploppers, although not this pond that I’m talking about, but another pond very near by. Haha I guess (the smarter) people are just scared to throw those $12 baits into the thick of it!

You guys are gonna break my bank!! But it’s okay, I’ve been itching to buy more tackle. As for everyone recommending t-rigged senkos, I know it works but gosh darn is it boring. Also, I feel in a very murky pond, I just have to get lucky and happen to drag or pop my worm next to a fish. The t-rigged worm doesn’t lend itself to being easily located in water that looks like black coffee. I will be shopping tomorrow, but still taking suggestions! Make sure you mention colors!!

Do you have a color preference for low visibility?? @bass4life....

@Bird what color/size spinners and buzzbaits. Colorado blades or willows? Trailers?? Haha I need some info!

Here’s my situation: I’m trying to fish one of the public ponds in my area. This pond is small (about 1-1.5 acres) and has a wide variety of structure: some rocks near the shore, pads in shallow pockets and banks, an island in the center, a fenced off sewer drain that sits about 4ft from shore, milfoil/algae that is about 2-3ft tall in pockets, and a small dock in about 1-2 ft of water. There are a bluegill, crappie, and shiners in the pond as well as bass and cats. The water clarity is atrocious. Maybe 1.5ft of visibility on a good day. There’s a small feeder creek that constantly churns up the pond making it muddy and the trees all around add a lot of stain. Also, the bottom is black and mucky. The only reason I know there’s plants in the pond is because I always end up dragging them out on my treble hooks lol. This pond is also heavily pressured, it’s located right next to a playground and pavilion so the public definitely knows about and fishes the crap out of this pond. That being said, I’m sure these bass are pretty spooky. If you guys had to bring only 1 bait to this pond to catch a bass, what are you bringing, what are you throwing it on, and why? My goal is to buy some of the baits you guys recommend and give em a try and I’ll let you know who’s right!

So my buddy and I recently got all the stuff you need to ice fish (a few rods, some buckets, and we even put our money together for a nice fish finder). We’ve been hitting our local ponds with some luck here and there but they are no more than 8ft deep and finding fish isn’t necessarily a challenge. we want to step up our game and try a bigger lake with some deeper water. But we don’t even know where to begin looking for fish. We’d love to hook into some bass but bluegill/crappie/perch would all be fun too. could you guys take a look at our lakes map and give us some advice on where to start looking for fish??

Yeah, today at work we were able to fish some of the farm ponds. The smaller ponds are getting cooler and we pulled 4 out using a drop shot and a ned rig off the bottom. Definitely boosted my confidence in that type of presentation and I’ll definitely be trying it on a real lake next time I’m out! @Boomstick, @Armtx77, & @Ktho I really appreciate you guys taking the time to check out the map and point us in the right direction. We will definitely try as many of the spots you guys suggested as we can. I’ve read a lot about fall fishing now, and I see that finding the bait will really help us find the fish

@BigAngus752 we tried fishing the northern, less wind beaten side of the causeway on our lake. With it being our first time out in real water we weren’t super comfortable being near the rocks on the southern, wind beaten side. The waves were picking up and our anchor wasn’t holding us very still so we figured we’d stay on the calmer side. As we get more experience under our belt we’ll have to try fishing the more wind beaten structures. All in all thanks for the advice!

@Mjmj what kind of stuff do you throw in those areas? And what angle do you normally cast at? Like do you cast to the flat and reel to the drop off? Cast to the drop off and reel to the flat? Just cast parallel to the drop off?? We could use a little advice on how to fish open water

Thanks for your guy’s suggestions! @Dens228 I was throwing underspins and spinners all day long. But we’ll try the shallows next to deeps the next time we go out! Thanks! @Cdn Angler my buddy threw a jerk bait for about an hour but no luck. Neither of us are good with a drop shot, but definitely something we’ll have to try next time. I’m also thinking that we just went right in the slowest part of the day. By 8am it was already bright out and fishing is almost a lost cause around noon. We’ll have to try later closer to sunset and see how that works. @GreenPig never had any luck on a jerk bait. We tried throwing one for a minute or two but we weren’t sure if we were fishing the right areas for it to be effective. Where do you throw em at??

@Johnpenguin yeah, when we handed over our left over night crawlers to a man at the dock he said after July fishing has really slowed down. Still would like to beat the odds and rip some lips from my buddy’s new boat though. Just not too sure where to start.

So my buddy just got a new boat and we put it out on Pymatuning lake in Eastern Ohio. We fished for about 5 hours and didn’t get a single hit. We fished rip rap, pads, the wall of the causeway, and even deeper in the flats by the channel. Nothin. I know getting skunked is just part of the the game, but if anyone has any tips on what to look for in fall patterns I’d appreciate it. My buddy and I are not familiar with fishing bigger waters. We mostly fish ponds smaller than 3 archers and only 8ft deep so we were kinda at a loss for what we should be doing. Just some general info: Water temps were around 65° today and it was pretty windy. Gusts up to 18mph so we were drifting around pretty good. It was partly cloudy, 75° day. We fished from 8am-1pm and we threw the kitchen sink at em so I don’t think it was our lure selection causing us bad luck. Any tips help! I’ve included a map of the reservoir in case you guys want to check it out and maybe point us in the right direction. Thanks!

Thanks for the help guys. Really. @redmexican5081 would bait balls still show up on wide or medium beam angle? I’m trying to find bait but I don’t know what I’m looking for or how to discern it from debris in the water