wcjohnson

I took about a nine year break shortly after high school. Small farm town with mostly private ponds, and the two I had access to were ruined by kids I knew trespassing and throwing beer cans in the water. Bank bound and catching a dink or two in the river or creek once in a blue moon wasn't an efficient use of my time, and driving at least an hour each way for over fished public spots with more dinks wasn't overly enticing. Moved to a new place with a pond 60-70 yards from my back door and have been back at it ever since. I don't regret taking a break because I found other new hobbies that I enjoyed and were more accessible, and once I started again, it felt relaxing instead of a grueling obligation.

Came here to say this - I was picking them apart with a chatterbait and wacky rig a week or two ago, but that bite went cold once the water level pushed into newly flooded timber and grass. Flipping and frogging these areas has been the ticket!

Like others said, depends on the size of the bait I'm throwing. To put a vote towards your debate, more times than not, I'm using a 4/0. Beaver style baits I'm using a 3/0, and less commonly a 5/0 due to my personal bait selection tendencies.

I've really struggled with this with my local pond over the past year and a half. My fish are picky, like 5 year old chicken nuggets and mac n' cheese picky. It took trying a number of different baits, colors, techniques, and picking off nasty slimy weeds to dial things in. A bluegill chatterbait with a bluegill ragetail menace trailer has been my savior. Start reeling immediately, and give it a quick pop to shake off any gunk collected from entry. Play around with your retrieve and rod angle until you find a speed and position where you feel the vibration and are in contact with the vegetation, but not constantly in the gunk. Pop the rod when the vibration stops, and keep winding away. Although I haven't had a ton of success on it yet, the rage rig has really surprised me with how clean it stays throughout the whole retrieve. Dragging a Zoom lizard across the vegetation and down into holes has also done very well, and was a cheap investment for testing. Punching does work from the bank, but can be very frustrating. Cast to your spot, pause jiggle pause, reel it in and move on to the next hole or spot. Lizards, Senkos, Ragebug/beaver style baits, trick worms, speed worms have seemed to work through the vegetation best. I know a lot of folks recommend swim jigs, and I wouldn't advise against it, but I found them to be the most difficult and biggest cabbage collector of anything I've tried. Good luck, and once you figure some things out, it's incredibly rewarding ?

The other night I was out fishing a pond behind my place and the resident muskrat was paddling around the middle of the pond. I went to grab my phone to send my wife a Snapchat because she thinks he's adorable - well, I hear a loud smack and look up to see a huge water ripple where Mr. muskrat was swimming. I couldn't believe it! I'm curious to hear others stories about wildlife you've seen on the water and all of a sudden, they gone! I'm telling myself it was a bass, but it was probably a big 'ole catfish... but most definitely a bass ?

I had a massive blowup and subsequent thrashing on a suicide duck and thought I was about to catch my PB on a gag gift yellow duck - nope, ole' mr whiskers! I was still pumped since it was my PB catfish on topwater ?

Soft plastics - green pumpkin, watermelon w/ red fleck, black and blue, smoke with red or purple fleck, and the wildcard - sweet potato pie (Wave 5" Tiki-Sticks) never seen a color like it, but it works! Jigs - black and blue, green pumpkin, brown Cranks - any one of or combination of the 'sexy' type colors; chartreuse, teal, aqua green Spinners/Chatters - bluegill, black, white Top - black and white I'm a sucker for unique or cool looking soft plastics like the sweet potato pie or tequila sunrise from how well they worked at farm ponds while I was growing up. Gotta love the Walmart sin bin baits!

I'm in a similar situation and had the some question - had some success on weightless presentations, but definitely going to have to try some of these out!

All the feedback is very much appreciated! For now, I think contacting the DNR is going to be my best starting point. I have no knowledge of their effectiveness, but I see there are water treatment products for ponds to help with muck, vegetation, etc. Seems like a more cost effective, but less impact solution - Heck, I'd chip in if they'd agree to do it!

As the topic states, I'm looking for some input on how to go about and whom to contact to get some attention brought to a public city pond behind my place. Talking with an old timer last week that's been fishing the pond for 20+ years, he mentioned the silt buildup over the years has reduced the depth of the pond significantly along with the quality of fish. Last year I contacted the number listed on the city's park district website, and it was evident they were going to disregard my call from the get go. The 'North' pond has been said by a number of folks to have been fished out, and this 'South' pond still has quality fish, but clearly has some vegetation management and silt buildup issues. This past week has me concerned as we had a significant amount of rain fall and for whatever reason, while most other places are flooded, this ponds water level is down about a foot and a half and the back cove is currently a mud flat. There's two creeks flowing into the pond along with a large drain - not sure if that could potentially cause excessive water run off resulting in lower water levels? I'm torn because while it does produce some great fish, I'd hate to watch it dwindle away and see a natural kill off. At the same time, I'm afraid drawing attention to it could result in it being drained and stocked from scratch. Whose my best bet to follow up with, and how should I go about it; the park district, the city, DNR?

Anyone else struggling to get a bite this past week? With the recent temperature spike up into the 70's, it seems like they have lockjaw at a few of the places I've been fishing.

Voted catch and release - To me, bass don't taste to great. The smaller ones are okay, but still not my favorite. Last weekend I was fishing near two older guys who were throwing back the 1-2 LB'ers and keeping the bigger ones. It kind of bothered me to see them catch a 6-7 lber and just toss it on the bank like it was nothing ?

Pickle hit the nail on the head for most of the Midwest. The shift from high 40's low 50's seems to have displaced them. I can see them lazily nipping at things on top of the water, and boiling on bait in the shallows. I've almost exclusively caught all my fish thus far slowly retrieving a lipless crank and ripping it out of the grass.

From the sounds of it, there's a number of people sharing your pain. Two to three weeks ago, I was slaying them. This past week, I was out several times at a few different locations, and was skunked each time. We've had a 30 degree temperature swing here in central Illinois this past week, think it has them in a funk as they're getting ready to spawn.

Central Illinois here, but my buddy up north of Rockford followed suit and finally caught his first fish of the year. Slow retrieve with a Rayburn Red Cotton Cordell Super Spot around the shallows dropping off to deeper water at the warmest point of the afternoon. Can't get them to bite on anything else or different color lipless - this has been in smaller shallow ponds and lakes thus far.