So today I had absolutely no luck at my local fishing hole, an acre pond on private land. This came as a shock to me as I always C&R at minimum one or two each time I go out. I must have thrown everything under the sun at the shallows: topwater first in the early am, then tried shallow crank, deep crank, dark/light plastic worms, a spinnerbait and a few types of frogs (frogs are almost my bailout bait here, but no luck today.)
I notice baitfish have absolutely taken control of the pond. I couldn't find a single patch of water without spooking them. You could see bass just inhaling them left and right, so much so that they have no room in their bellies for my so-so looking baits. Every single cast of my pop-r and the landing zone would look like you hit it with a 14 gauge, shad fleeing everywhere. Every single *bloop* of my pop-r and same situation. I doubt the bass could even see my lure with the surrounding water peppered the way it was with shad.
It's starting to make sense why I always catch half # to 1# fish, when I know obviously there has to be more than a few trophy sized living handsomely. So how do you fish when the bass are living like kings already? Should we be thinking about introducing another predatory species to bring down their populations, or is there a trick?
- a confused fisherman
