Search the Community

Hi all, pretty new member here. Had a question for you all. I started bass fishing this summer and just caught my 50th bass last week! I initially started using hot dogs as bait, which would catch bass once every roughly 90 min, in the 2-5 pound range, but the number of turtles getting snagged was unbearable, so I switched to soft plastics, starting with Yum dingers/lizards, and occsionally crankbaits/spinnerbaits. My issue is when I switch to soft plastics, I catch more fish per hour (1.5 per hour instead of .6 an hour), but they are generally small (1 pound or less). I like that I catch more fish, but I would like to catch bigger ones as well with soft plastics. Am I doing something wrong? Some info. 1. I flip/pitch 4-5 inch Yum dingers all over near what little cover there is (water plants). I almost never throw the senko to open water...seems unproductive. 2. The pond is in NYC, and it takes 20 min to walk around it, so not that big. 3. I have tried crankbaits and spinnerbaits, but I haven't gotten anything, besides a giant bluegill. I have issues with getting them snagged, because there are many underwater branches etc. 4. I notice bigger bass look at my senko and always avoid it, they don't even bite and spit it out. 5. I don't think I'm fishing the senko wrong but am open to suggestions, I have caught 2-3 pounders up in Montauk's lakes/ponds. 6. The water is VERY green. I use Junebug, watermelon red flake, green pumpkin colors. Any feedback is appreciated!

My dad and I went out with just a couple jigs and that's it! It's not often I can say I bested him, but I did. Maybe it's a sign of things to come. I caught this 5+ .. and one other 4+.

Hey everyone, this is my first post so I made sure it was a good one. This is a typical fish that got away story just so you're aware, Hahaha. I was fishing the retention pond at my apartment complex yesterday around 3:00 pm. Very small pond, 150 yards in length and you can cast across it. I've only caught tiny bass up until this point. I heard rumors of a monster bass lurking near the shallowest part of the pond, where most of the cover/bait fish are. Second cast using a black/red flake crawfish jig got me a small bite, which turned out to be the potential bass of a lifetime... My medium action pole immediately bent over, with the fish ripping drag out of the quantum smoke spinning reel. Fought for a good 30 seconds trying to keep him from jumping, until he broke the surface like a great white shark. My heart started pounding. I've caught a 7 lb bass before but this was much, much bigger. Got him close to the shore, but as soon as it saw me he/she shot into the weeds, ripping out more drag and shaking the hook loose in the process. I've never felt so dissapointed in my life, so close to my first 10 lb or more large mouth. Long story short, I need redemption! In your guy's opinion, should I fish the same spot next weekend? Same lure? Same time? How the hell can I get this fish to bite again?! Thanks in advance, I'm looking forward to posting a picture of this monster for you guys!

What fishing style or technique is your favourite or catches you the most fish?

Hello All! I have been lurking around this WONDERFUL resource of information and I wanted to introduce myself finally. I have been fishing for about 4 months, mainly on weekends but loving every minute of it. I have been watching and reading every chance I get and I have learned a lot. I have also become a rod/reel addict! so I am wanting to see if you guys could help me associate my rod/reels to their best partner. Now some of these rods/reels were purchased second hand, off craigslist and some new. I was mainly looking at price point starting out and have bought a few pricier items as time has gone. I need help matching rods to reels and possibly weed out the stragglers/duplicates. THANK YOU! Rod Brand Rod Spec Rod Model Rod Length Lure Use/Technique Abu Garcia Med Heavy / Fast Vendetta 6'6" Crank Baits Fenwick Medium/Fast Silver Hawk 7'0" Finesse/Plastics Abu Garcia Med Heavy / Fast Vendetta 6'6" Spinner Baits Castaway Med Heavy / Fast Pro Sport 6'6" Powell Medium/Mod Fast Max 6'10" Jerkbaits/Topwater Shimano Med Heavy / Ext Fast Crucial 7'3" Jigs, Frogs Reel Type Reel Brand Reel Model Gear Ratio Spinning Abu Garcia Orra S 5.8:1 Spinning Daiwa Lagalis 6.0:1 Casting Abu Garcia Revo S 6.4:1 Casting Abu Garcia Revo MGX 7.1:1 Casting Lews Tournament Lite 7.1:1 Casting Shimano Curado 200i 7.2:1

Does anyone have any tips on catching pond bass on swimbaits during trout plants? The pond I fish has been planting trout for the past few months and I am trying to target bigger bass in the pond. The pond is averages about 5 to 6 feet deep, with the deepset part at 12 feet deep. There is habitat placed in the middle of the pond, although it is hard to fish because it is not within casting distance. The pond is 12 acres big and the water is clear to stained. Trout are planted every two weeks. The trout are around 6 to 12 inches long and roughly 1500 trout are planted. I have been using an 8 in weedless hudd in a ROF 12 but have not had any success yet. I was wondering maybe if I should down size to like a 6inch or a 68 special. also I was wondering what time would be best to fish for the larger fish, like during, or after trout plants. and also what time of day to fish. The pond does get fishing pressured but only during trout plants, and not many people fish for bass. Any information would help. Thanks.

So I live right next to a pretty small pond that I fish a lot, I use a frog that doesn't work very well, and I just got a new crank bait that I caught one 13 inch chunker on. For now I'm going to keep fishing with my crank but I wanted to know what the best lures are for small town ponds. I have spinnerbait, spoons, popper, and jigs. Anything else that works great?

A close friend of mine has a private pond full of bass (not sure whether large mouth or small mouth, he just recently had it stocked but I haven't caught any or asked him what he stocked it with. I'm 90% he told me once he stocked it with small mouth. I know, small mouth in a pond sounds a bit odd to me too but that's all the info I got.) He says the best thing he is able to use is simply Texas rigging a rubber worm and steadily reeling it through the water. It is still 50-60 degrees in my area and has yet to have a good hot spell. We're ready to catch some fish though. I have tried the Texas rigged worm, top-water frogs, salamanders soft plastics, spinner baits. They will approach and follow the top-water frogs and will almost hit it, but the slowly wander away. I am just wondering if you guys can help me out on directing me toward a bait that may trigger them to strike this time of year. Thank you to everyone and tight lines!

i live in NY me and my friends have finally found a pond that we consistantly pull 2 pounders out of. the biggest fish we have seen so far was about 3 and a half pounds. we use kelly worms/bass stopers, sometimes all use a top water jitter bug at night time. what tips could you give us to tur our 2 pounders into 3 or 4 pounders. most of the time we fish close to the shore and just work around the whole pond. ive tried spinners but they dont seem to work as well as a texas rigged craw or worm. are we fishing the wrong depth? what could we change that will produce a larger bass.

Looking for some new spots in orange park/jax. I fish mostly argyle,eagle harbor and the one on wells road but would like some new areas to try.

So, I went to a friends neighborhood's 5-6 acre pond yesterday....Here's a little info about it. It was cleaned out, enlarged and stocked about 3-4 years ago with tiger bass. You can bank fish all the way around the lake, which I do out there. It has sparse vegetation around the banks in 2-4ft of water and it drops, gradually, all most all the way around the pond to 15-20ft. I've caught 1-2# fish all day last summer up until late October or so, and haven't been back out there. So...we went 2 Sundays ago to the only point with a shallow bar and caught 15 or so 2-3# fish chunking and winding an XR50-Rayburn Red & Spinnerbait, they were on fire on this bar! So.....I go out there yesterday hoping to do the same or see some bedding fish, etc. The pond was super clear, and right of the bat saw nice fish, some singles some in schools, roaming every bank in 2-3ft. Even saw a couple 3-5 lbers, but didn't catch a single fish all day!!! WTH is up??? My approach with the high sun a warm weather was to stay a good piece of the bank and fan cast a rattling bait, spinnerbait, jerk bait, etc. After seeing literally a hundred fish roaming the banks, I spent three hours out there with not the first bite. Again I threw a rattling bait(copper red-eye shad, rayburn red xr50, spinnerbait, jerk bait, chatter bait, square bill, t-rigged worm, dropshot...but nothing!! Can someone help explain WTH was going on, what I might have been doing totally wrong, etc. I lost sleepover it!

I fish a small, 4-ish sq. acre pond that's real close to where I live and I have a few questions about it. First ill describe it though: It has a deep half and a shallow half. The deepest part is maybe 6 feet. The shallow part has lots of fallen trees and sunken trees = snag city! The deep end of the one has a lot of trees leaning high over the water and lots of leaves fall in the water. It is sandy, but has pretty much a layer of dead leaves. The shallow end just is pretty sandy but still has some leaves on the bottom.. My main question is are the leaves of any concern? Do bass tend to stay away from places with lots of dead leaves like this? I know bass can often be found on rocky and sand bottoms. Also, how do you fish a place like this? Another question is do the carp that hang out in the corner of the lake in the deep end affect the bass? There is a lot of carp in that pond (grass) by the way.

Names Andrew, I started fishing about two years ago on live worms wrapped around an available hook, since then I've moved on to the fly and have caught the bug. I am interested in majoring and attaining an advanced degree in a marine biological field, or possibly a fisheries specialty. That leads to the point of the thread. At the moment I am exclusively wade fly fishing (9 weight) a medium sized pond (Width=40 yds Length=120-150) It seems to be extremely well taken care of, I see what seems to be an aerator, there is a rather large pier, plenty of sub surface trees, a few overhangs, and points. It seems to be about 4' deep 4' off the bank I'd guess 8'-10' in the middle. I am starting a fishing log right now and so far the data I am going to collect: Conditions: Sun/Moon rise, noon, set, distance from earth at the time of both, moon phase, Weather: air temp hourly for whatever time fished. I also intend to record what flies I use and what retrieves were used for both succesful and unsuccessful attempts. Lengths, girths, mouth colorations, and where specifically they were caught. I have drawn a map of the pond with a legend of all structure and available cover I am aware of with the intention of adding too. About 5 years ago there was a fish recorded (or so I've been told twice) at 8 pounds. I saw about 4 bass of 5 or more pounds obliterating bream in a shallow flat, and what I believe to be a bass (skepticism comes from size) 12-15LBS on a glance. (Never seen carp, or cats in there, and it was facing the bank at night when I got to see it. My questions are: What am I missing for my daily log? (it is only going to be for this pond.) How should I measure water temp? How to best determine gender? Does anyone have knowledge of what I can derive from the coloration of the inner top lip? Also I am looking for fly patterns that immitate a rather large Bream, I want to target the lunker. I have read pretty religiously since I found this site a few weeks ago and intend on becoming a regulare poster. All tips are welcome, especially fly specific. ...And this turned out to be pretty long and dry, thanks for reading it.