Would You Say There Are Any Big Fish Here?

[Preytorien]

Hey guys,

 

Just in need of a bit of wisdom from those of you who have been fishing for a long time (which I presume is most of you).

 

I have basically unlimited access to a small pond that was created back in the mid 50's for an interstate (as you can see in the photo). It was filled in with water, and now a friend and I fish it relatively often.

 

The pond averages about 9ft deep with one hole about 20ft deep in the lower right-hand corner. The edges drop pretty quickly, but there is underwater vegetation up to about 12ft away from the bank. The vegetation is about a foot under the water. The water is pretty clear. On a scale of 1 to 10 (10 being gin-clear), this is probably a 7 or 8.

 

The pond gets quite honestly zero pressure, other than myself and my friend or two several times a year. We can only access it via boat, and we use a small johnboat with an electric trolling motor.

 

We can consistently catch nice bluegill all day with grubs and small lures, and we can usually also consistently catch bass with about anything as well, with the best being small topwater frogs around the fringes of the pond, where the weed lines are. Unfortunately, while the bluegill are very nice sized, but the bass are all only up to 10inches long, never larger. I've never caught any other kind of fish in the pond, no catfish, no crappie....just bass and bluegill.

 

My interest stems from the advice of a pro bass fisherman I know, who says that despite there being only 10in bass on our lures, there are no doubt much larger fish in there, and he suspects they're giants, maybe ones who happened to survive past the 10in limit cut, and now have their pick of food in the pond, but I don't know.

 

My question is 1) Do you really think that's possible? I don't know much about pond ecosystems, but it seems like this one's out of whack, good enough to hold a few hawgs?
                      2) Say there actually ARE several giant bass in there, growing since the 50's, how do I target them, where, and when? I've never purposely fished for JUST giants, I like to catch anything with gills

 

Thanks for any advice. An aerial photo of the pond is attached.

[Brian6428]

I really don't know too much about this stuff, but from a general food chain standpoint it looks like the bass might be stunted. Too many bass, not enough food. As to fishing for big fish, I think the Jig-n-pig will be a crowd favorite on that one. 

 

Brian

[einscodek]

Yea without much else to go on, I'd say there may be too many 10 in bass in there and not enough small bluegill they can take down.  Crowded 10" bass cant take on adult bluegill (tho I'm sure they try) but they can take down baby bluegill.

Problem is there probably aint enuf to go around for all the 10 inch bass.

IF this is the case, you'd want to start keeping the 10 in fish to reduce the bass population a bit to allow them to grow to say 17" where they can take out more of the bigger bluegill and reach for the 20+" potentials.

 

In a lake which is not pressured, assuming you know what yer doing, its hard to believe you haven't taken some of the giants in there.. its a bit alarming all yer gettin is 10in fish.. cause that small.. thats why it may be a high probability they are stunted..

[Tony L.]

I agree with Brian. I am in no way an expert on this one, but it is entirely possible that the bass have overpopulated which would stunt their growth because of the fierce competition for food. If there are bigger ones in there, though, that jig/pork would be a definite go to. You could be successful with other lures as well, just scale up the size. Use BIG soft plastics and cranks, or beef up ur spinnerbaits with a chunky trailer. I don't know what your stance is on using live bait, but it seems that hooking a large shiner through the lips and suspending it under a bobber is catching on with more people and they are landing some hogs. Whatever method you choose, just fish a little bit more carefully. Big fish didn't grow to that size by being stupid. They are older, wiser, and will be much more easily spooked than the little guys, especially in clear water. Stay further back, cast from a distance, and try to move quietly in ur boat. You won't believe how well the sound of people and gear will transfer through a metal hull and into the water.

[SCangler91]

Tried bigger baits?  That'd be the best way to find out.  Just use the same type of bait you're using to catch the dinks except bigger.  Sure you're numbers will be down but maybe you find what you're looking for.  No one on here will be able to definitively tell you if there are bigger fish in there because we can't fish it.

[CDMeyer]

Well I would definitely say that there are some big Bulls in there for sure.  I Know am only 16 but I am in an advanced college prep course for Environmental Science.  So with the knowledge that I have gained from that class and all the years of bass fishing I have done there are definitely big ones in there due to "Survival of the fittest" law.

-As for how to get them I would say try a deep diving crank bait, preferable a Rapala DT series (to your preferred depth).  Focus just on this, you will catch less fish but hopefully they will be of more quality.

[flyfisher]

Survival of the fittest does not mean they have to be large it just means in their small eco system they are the luckiest first and strongest second and smartest third.

 

Easiest way to tell would be to use one of those bluegills for bait and chuck it out there and see what happens.  If there is a big girl in there she will hit it eventually.

 

The other way to go about it is to go out at dusk or dawn and chuck a big topwater like a jitterbug.  They seem to bring the big girls out to play more often than any other lure i have thrown.

[WRB]

You are located in Indiana right? A 10 lb bass would be considered a giant, 8 lb a trophy size bass. I doubt that this small (2 acre) lake/pond has the forage base unless there is a feeder stream replenishing the prey source. Big bass become cannibals eating those smaller 10" bass, so a 6"" to 8" bass colored swimbait or wake bait would be the first choice. The swimbait will get any follows to take a close look and you will see them if looking closely. Another option is fish at night with 10" worms, T-rigged.

Don't expect more than 1 big bass per acre that is catchable, so very few in this lake. There could be a dozen in the 5 to 6 lb range.

Tom

[bigbill]

My PB of 10# I caught her on a Rebel BIG CLAW crawfish

Crankbait that dives 10'. I cast it out and swept back the rod to make the lure hit the bottom and just reel it fast enough so it stays bouncing off the bottom.

[Bluebasser86]

I second the big swimbait, either a bluegill or baby bass imitator. If there are any bigger bass that should find one of them for you. It sounds to me like they may be stunted though and if that is the case you'll need to remove a lot of the smaller bass from the pond. Big bass can grow in very small bodies of water. A friend of mine has a pond I can literally cast across in most parts of it but we've both caught fish approaching 7lbs out of it. 

[Catt]

Contact Bob Lusk @ Pond Boss, he has forgotten more about pond bass than all of us know!

[SPEEDBEAD.]

Start keeping some bass (legal length and creel limit). Find someone who will eat them or fix them up for yourself.

 

It's gonna take some time but if you've fished it as many times as you say and you are asking us if there are big fish, then you have neither seen nor caught any there to confirm it. That would lead me to believe that you've got a stunted population for sure.

 

There might not be anything of size in there yet but it's possible with some work.

[Dylan L]

For large bass I would try larger crankbaits (to big for the bluegills to get there mouth around) and some heavy jigs with a KVD senior chunk as a trailer. Work these around the weed edges. Also try a Texas rig with a 10 inch plastic worm. Fish this right in the weeds. This is just what works for me in a pond here in Tennessee and I can pull 4 pounders out all day long. Hope this helped!

[senile1]

You said that all of the bluegill you catch are nice-sized.  Are most of them the size of your hand?  Often, if the vast majority of bluegills in the pond are huge, your bass won't be.  If you are only catching very large bluegill it could very well be because the bass eat the majority of the small ones and the large ones are all that is left.  A 10 inch bass isn't capable of eating a hand-sized bluegill so they go hungry waiting for the next bluegill spawn. 

 

The Missouri Department of Conservation provides pond management strategies and one of the guides states that a pond managed for trophy bass typically has high numbers of bluegill less than 6 inches long.  I see you are in central Indiana so your bass are probably similar in size to Missouri's and their forage size would need to be similar as well.

[einscodek]

Survival of the fittest is one thing (those 10" bass survie) .. to become bigger in that pond would mean being able to eat big bluegill and 10" bass.. and out-competing a mob of 10" bass eating the newly spawned bluegills.

So say you had 1 or 2 bass bigger than 17" in there.. and someone caught them for dinner, well now you got nothin in there now which can get bigger nor eat more 10" fish to allow forage for lesser bass to get bigger.. stunting.

Certain size bass require X# of pounds of forage every year.. if you cant take out big bluegill and other 10" bass, yer only forage that year is largely new spawn.. and that only lasts so long

 

Check out bassresource's latest post about this:

http://www.bassresource.com/fish_biology/bass-on-bass.html

[Raul]

Dude, you don´t have to see to believe, there will always be big fish if there are little fish, little fish don´t spontaneously appear, the had to come from somewhere and that somewhere is from bigger fish. 

 

For years I fished several ponds about 7,500 sq ft in surface, they produced dinks by the tons and then one day I hooked something not dink size, caught my first 5 lber in one of those ponds and my first 10 lber also.. The problem here is not if they have big fish or not, the problem is how many big fish are in the pond. Little ponds can´t hold many big fish.

[einscodek]

10" bass or 1 year old bass can spawn.. stunting is a real phenomenon

[WRB]

10" bass or 1 year old bass can spawn.. stunting is a real phenomenon

Stunting doesn't create a midget bass species. Stunted bass usually have large size heads with skinny bodies due to lack of protein to gain weight. A pond with an over abundance of 1 year class can deplete the smaller prey fish, however the few adult size bass will thin those out in time. A hard freeze will also impact a pond, however there is a population of adult size bluegill and should be some larger bass.

Lets give this guy a chance to try out what has been suggested and learn what happens if he shares it.

Tom

[Preytorien]

Thanks for the help guys. Both myself and my buddy are going to try the thinning-of-the-herd method to see what that'll result in.

 

As WRB said above, most of these fish have "normal" sized heads and skinny bodies, so they must not be getting enough food. Like I said, nearly every bluegill we've caught is within the pan-frying size or larger, so as you've all recommended, these bluegill must be out competing the bass.

 

We'll try the solutions above and in the meantime throw large baits.

 

Thanks guys.