PondBoss

No I didn't kill it. She still lives needs to make more big ones just like her.

As long as you are taking those fish you kill out of the water there shouldn't be a problem. But if you put those dead fish back in the water it can cause problems. (over a period of time of course) To answer rondef: I didn't release that fish back to her native waters. At least not yet. Currently she resides in a self made pond/pool in my back yard. Am waiting for her to spawn out with a few other males before she goes back home.

I"m no fisheries boilogist but I'm not sure that itroducing another type of forage will make the fish get any larger. Instead what I think would be a better idea would be to thin out this over populated lake. The fish can't get any bigger if they are fighting for food with all of the other fish. One thing I've done on my own private waters is to make a slot limit of sorts. This has definately helped, and have seen significant size increase in the last couple of years. I use this fish below as an example. Caught her just the other day, before that the biggest fish I'd seen out of that pond was only about 5lb. This one weighted in at 7lb 12oz. Again I'm no scientist but just my 2 cents.

what a horse of a fish, 12lbs? the state record is 14lb 10oz and I"m thinking you got hosed! nice catch

I've been wanting to try drop shotting this year. What are the best ways to do it? My understanding is that it is mainly a verticle presentation. I mainly fish from the bank, would I fish it basically like a worm in the horizontal sense?

got her on a Lake Fork Tackle 6" crawdad(watermelon seed w/red fleck) was in about 2-3 feet of water where the sand stone bottom turns into the dreaded oklahoma red clay.

just in case anyone was wondering. she weighed in at 7lb 12oz

before rigging a soft plastic I always bite off the tip where I insert the hook. kinda like pulling the pin on a grenade. just gets the juices flowing and gets the mood set for fishing. kinda weird but oh well.

Not bad for late February in Oklahoma ehh?

When I prefish the main thing I try to look for are the areas of drastic depth change, creek channels, road beds, and basic structure. Mainly a sonar run if you will. If it's a lake I know already then I just shoot from the hip and make adjust menst on the fly. Like fishizzle said it's hard to scrap what you found only a day or two previous especially if you were on the fish.

Sweet link thanks, man those things can get really pricey. I've only been able to find the less expensinve rubber kind here in the local stores eg: sassy shad type baits. I bought some the other day and they look pretty darn fancyand very life like. Any recomendations on how to rig and work them? Thanks again

I've made the descision to start fishing the swim bait this year. After seeing and hearing about all the success of them I figure why not give them a shot. Can anyone tell me where to get them how to rig them and how to fish them? Thanks in advance for all the help.

Any Central Oklahoma clubs out there?

Perhaps I am the odd man out on this but I throw top water all year long. The best days for me have been when the air temp is way cooler than the water temp and it looks like steam is coming off the water. My best day ever fishing a buzzbait was basically casting into the misty clouds just over the water. The air temp that day was 31* it was the 2nd freeze of the year. It's always been my out look on it that you will always catch the active fish on topwater, and lets face it that is the way you want to start your day. Get an early limit and you can fish for the bigger slower fish the rest of the day.

my favorite way to catch small pond bass is throwing a bright colored trick worm and working it weightless right under the surface. it falls a lot slower than the senko and just may be able to give you that slow presentation you are looking for without catching the dinks on the bottom. generally I use the bright orange or bubble gum, rigged up with a #2 gammy and walk the dog retrieve. works like a charm.

This happens to me all the time.(well it used to happen) See the fish and can't catch them with anything. I started using a weightless trick worm in the loudest colors I can find. Usually the electric orange is dynamite. Fish it walking the dog style back to you slowly and no deeper than 6-12inches. This is a killer for the pond bass around here, hopefully it will work for you there.

If you are still thinking about trying light tackle and going small I'd try throwing a weightless trick worm and dead stick it just on the edges of the pads. Cast into and onto and just pull it over the edge and let it set when you can't stand just waiting for it to fall anymore wiggle the rod tip and make the slack line dance. Then hang on cuz oh man do they love to smack a "help less" little worm.

The whole changing color thing OTHER is talking about is right, but completely opposite. The darker/muddier the water the lighter color the fish. The clearer/cleaner the water the darker the fish will be. At least in my personal experiences this is and always has been the case. Not to sure on the science behind it but the lehmans way to understand it is dark water blocks out the sun light there fore lighter color. It's kinda sun screen for the fish. Makes sense to me anyways. As for the changing color in the cover they are in OTHER is also right on the money. If you are fishing certain cover you should be able to tell what kind it is. Fish move to often to change color to match their surroundings. But like I say thats just my best guess. Good luck and happy fishing ;D

definitely fish the smaller shallower pond. with less water they got less room to hide. ;D but in all seriousness I have basically this exact situation here, when I'm willing to be skunked in search of a big bass 8+ lbs I'll fish the bigger deeper water. If I'm taking someone with me and I'm wanting to catch a lot of descent fish the smaller shallower pond is always the option.

At least you guys are able to get out and complain about the heat and or humidity. The rain here in Central Oklahoma has been so bad half of the lakes are closed from flooding, no wear to get a line wet unless you live on water, or have a farm pond to fish but then you have to battle getting stuck.(already happened twice this year) Give me the dry heat though any day.

another possibility is over stocked fish. they will tend to have some abnormalities in their growth and have bigger heads and small bodies. like in the second picture I can see a bump on the top of that fishes head I've noticed a lot of knothead fish in overstocked bodies of water. this may not be the case in your situation but definitely a possibility.

Here in Oklahoma unfortunately it seems the best times for me anyways are right in the middle of the day when the sun is beating down on you. I fish bright colored baits in water some times as shallow as 1ft. Now that I think about it I never really fish water deeper than 3-5 feet and kill with a weightless trickworm walking the dog just under the surface. The fish out here just can't stand it, and have to come up and check it out.

I'm sure many of you out there are like me and like to wet a line after work. Any tips or help would be appreciated on fishing in the dusk hours. I never seem to have any luck. This concerns me since I have a night tourny in a couple of weeks. Thanks in advance.

Had this same experience this weekend. But the fish were jumping everywhere snagging dragon flies out of the air. Started throwing a watermelon seed with red fleck trickworm and killed them even caught a couple before the bait hit the water. Caught fish all day on this pattern. Would see a fish jump and throw right into the ripples he'd made before you knew it fish on! The only problem is they were all dinks but when I'm catching fish on every cast I'm not to worried about it. No money was involved, so who cares. Did manage a 6 on the last cast though, what a day.

went out today and killed them on a watermelon with red fleck trick worm. Lots of dinks but the 6+ #er ended the day very nicely. Didn't do well at all on the color that I normally use at this place but who knows, all that matters is I was lucky enough to have what they wanted. Fishing was great!