Hey fellow fishermen and fisherladies,
Got a question for you more experienced fisherman. I need to give a little pond description before I ask it though.
-130 acres in size, max depth 15 feet
-10'x10' MOVING giant reed mats (wind pushes them everywhere) when altogether due to wind covers an acre easily!
-extremely stained water, brown almost. In a float tube you cannot see your feet!
-weeds are pretty much everywhere some places right up to the surface
-alewives do come up in there (which is why I believe they are so big!)
In the dead of summer i use to struggle finding bass. This last summer I found a top water lure that works. I have my spots where I know there to be decent fish but with the floatillas moving around by the hour fish in there rarely stay in one spot (so I think).
As for subsurface lures the ONLY thing I can get them to hit is chartruese tipped green colored worms texas rigged with no weight. It drives me nuts because the fishing technique with these is literally to cast at a grass mat, let it sits for like x amount of minutes and then just watch your line drag side ways. I DESPISE fishing this way (albeit it semi-effective). It is boring as all hell and every once in a while a fish gets the hook swallowed and I am all catch and release so I hate it. If I have any tension on the fishing line the fish will not hit the lure (trust me, I know you are thinking I am just not setting the hook soon enough yada yada).
So the question becomes do you guys have any advise on a lure or on a fishing method that might work in this pond? Has anyone come across a shallow stained pond with tons of weeds (in a colder climate, Florida doesn't always understand Maine bass). and found something successful.
I have tried jigs, they legit fall into about 3 feet of grown up weeds under water and don't work. I have tried spinner baits of all colors, I have tried cranks and jerks but they get weeds unless super shallow divers in which case nothing hits. I have tried swimbaits with hooks buried and nothing (or they get in weeds). I am open to any suggestions of any kind. This pond has some GIANT bass in it, I spent 2 hours one morning in the summer hauling in 22 fish all above 3.5 pounds, biggest being 5.4 and I know there are bigger ones in there but I don't think I am offering them what they truly want.
The pond does have a population of black crappie, pickerel, perch and carp. Although besides the carp I haven't seen/caught any of them more then twice in 4 years!
Thank you ahead of time and sorry for the long winded post. With giving fishing advice for a pond there is never enough information and even then unless you've fished it, it is really hard to gauge as no two ponds are the same.
