any one ever fish a place like this?

[Mr. Aquarium]

i have a honey hole that has big bass but its weird. either super small bass like 1-2lbsers or a 5plus.  if you fish conventional baits your going to load up on small bass and think this place sucks.since ive started fishing swimbaits the size of the bass went way up. i can expect a 5 plus ever trip.  i have caught some big bass on conventional gear over the years, frogs, plastics, spinner baits.  

havent broken 8lbs here, tough here in MA. but i think there are giants out deep.
its a small pond, 11 acres, deep water 30 feet. lot of bait fish, no competing fish like pike pickerel or anything like that. perch, sunfish, shiners

[BassB8Caster]

pick up a real prey 7" shiner and go to work. you will find the big ones.

[Mr. Aquarium]

34 minutes ago, BassB8Caster said:

pick up a real prey 7" shiner and go to work. you will find the big ones.

 i got one! ive caught many big fish on my 9 inch slammers.  tried fishin a hudd here no success! cant wait to get the real prey down there! 
my biggest is 7.8 on a blue gill cranking 9 inch slammer

 

[BassB8Caster]

22 minutes ago, Mr. Aquarium said:

 i got one! ive caught many big fish on my 9 inch slammers.  tried fishin a hudd here no success! cant wait to get the real prey down there! 
my biggest is 7.8 on a blue gill cranking 9 inch slammer

 

Nice. My next 2 purchases are the 7" shiner (tempted to go with the mega) and a 9" slammer. Pumped for swimbait hogs this season. 

[Troy85]

One of the places I fish, I notice that I catch consistently bigger fish using a swim-bait  rather than other baits, but only when the water is clean.  I like the pre rigged Berkley Swim Shad.

[Mr. Aquarium]

any reason why? maybe the bait they feed on is big so there for they target big baits.

also why is there a ton of small bass and big bass. never catch 3-4lb bass

[Bluebasser86]

My wife's family owns a rock quarry like that. About 5-6 acres and loaded with 1.5lb bass. You can easily catch 100 a day most trips, but every once in awhile you set the hook into a fish that stops the rod instead of moving immediately like all the rest. I haven't been out there since my boys were born but I need to take the oldest now that he's old enough to stay interested for a few hours if they're biting. 

[Justin62882]

I fish a pond similar to the one your talking about. You either catch a 1 pound bass or a 5 to 6 pounder. It's weird. I haven't caught anything in between. Maybe a couple at pound and half. The only thing I can catch the big ones on has been big lizards or a chatterbait with a bigger trailer. I've thrown alot of baits but a swim bait hasn't been one.YET. lol. 

[CroakHunter]

15 hours ago, Mr. Aquarium said:

any reason why? maybe the bait they feed on is big so there for they target big baits.

also why is there a ton of small bass and big bass. never catch 3-4lb bass

Maybe there was a big turnover or fish kill a few years ago and the big ones lived, and the 3-4 pounders died off and the small ones you are catching arent "old" enough to be 3-4lbs yet. definitely odd that you haven't caught any that side I would figure at least a few mixed in. Sounds like a fun place regardless

[bigbill]

Fact bigger bass eat the smaller bass, plus the pickerel get their share too.

 

lets say your catching 1.5lb to 2lb bass and it ends. I switch from a number 3 mepps anglia to a number 4 or a 5 anglia. Same color,  the bigger bass hit it. The bite is on again. Seeing this the bigger bass come in to see what the smaller bass are eating but they won’t bite the smaller baits. So it gets slow, I upsize my baits. Sometimes the smaller bass won’t strike the larger sized baits and sometimes they do. But the bigger fish do shut down the smaller bass action. This tells me they eat their own too.

[papajoe222]

One of our club lakes was like that for years. A ton of fish under 12in. and the normal amount of big fish for the acreage, but no 2lb.-4lb. ones. 

A study showed that the abundance of small fish depleted the forage base  so much that it stunted their growth and the only bigger fish that did survive were using the much smaller bass as forage. 

They did two things to eliminate those conditions. First they allowed the removal of fish under 12in. while prohibiting removal of any bass over 12in. At the end of the season, they added 400lbs. of minnows. Eight years later there was a good mix of small to large bass and a healthy, Minniow based forage base. 

[scaleface]

The small lake I fish a lot use to be full of small bass and a good number of lunkers . Very few bass two to four lbs . It has a slot limit and I think people finally started taking the little bass out , I always have . This past year very few bass under the slot and a good population over but no big ones for me this past year . Its a fun lake to fish  either way .

[MIbassyaker]

Most of the places I fish are like this -- small, public access bodies of water (natural lakes, small dam backwaters, river bayous, gravel pits), often with one or more holes 20' or deeper, loaded with largemouth up to the state 14" size limit, but mostly under, with an occasional 4LB+. I pulled a 5lb out of a 30-acre lake last summer in which I had previously not caught anything over 16". 

 

In MI, a 5lb largemouth is around 10 years old -- surviving 10 years in a 30 acre lake with public access, within an hour's drive of the 2nd largest population center in the state is something of an achievement, and not something I expect to encounter very often, especially in a place that doesn't have much of a catch-and-release culture.  I know of a very small handful of confirmed 7lbers caught in lakes near me but none going 8 or more.  There is simply no place I can expect a 5+ every trip, no matter what bait I throw.

 

I have a few swimbaits -- a couple s-wavers, a magic swimmer, and a couple others whose names I can't think of at the moment, and have used them with the intent of catching larger fish. Perhaps I'm just in the minority, but I have not honestly seen any increase in the number of larger bass I catch, or indeed any reduction in the number of smaller bass I catch.

[RyneB]

my wife's family has an old sand quarry that is now a lake. Since I started fishing it 8 years ago, it was the same way. tons of 12-14 inch fish. And get an occasional 5 lber once a year. We started taking out the 12-14 inchers and we started noticing the average size fish was getting bigger. Still not catching many big ones, but it seems to have a lot less 12 inchers and average catch is better quality. 

[Mr. Aquarium]

On 2/10/2018 at 5:09 AM, CroakHunter said:

Maybe there was a big turnover or fish kill a few years ago and the big ones lived, and the 3-4 pounders died off and the small ones you are catching arent "old" enough to be 3-4lbs yet. definitely odd that you haven't caught any that side I would figure at least a few mixed in. Sounds like a fun place regardless

im sure its possible but could they have a die off in a pond thats 30 feet deep with springs? we get some bad winters and have had fish kills before but never would think it would happen in a place like this 

there is very little shallow water. the shoreline drops very quickly

thanks guys for the info. there is plenty of feed for them.  you can see all the bait fish feeding at the surface at sundown. its loaded. big shiners to like 1lb shiners.

but maybe it isnt a bad thing to cull out some smaller bass. to keep the balance between predators and prey.

also makes me wonder about bass color swimbaits.  maybe thats the secret to catching the larger fish here. 
 

[TylerT123]

Try a Savage Gear Topwater Duck, I've caught 2 bass on it at once. I bought a Savage Gear Bat as well. I have yet to try it. I've also heard great things from the Spro RAT too.

[Mr. Aquarium]

20 hours ago, TylerT123 said:

Try a Savage Gear Topwater Duck, I've caught 2 bass on it at once. I bought a Savage Gear Bat as well. I have yet to try it. I've also heard great things from the Spro RAT too.

they LOVE topwaters here! big topwaters will get bit! spook baits, wakes baits, jitterbugs, frogs.   so im sure they will hit a duck, bat and rat. i do have the savage duck and the fruck

[TylerT123]

1 hour ago, Mr. Aquarium said:

they LOVE topwaters here! big topwaters will get bit! spook baits, wakes baits, jitterbugs, frogs.   so im sure they will hit a duck, bat and rat. i do have the savage duck and the fruck

The only thing I don't like is that the legs get bent, that stinks 

[Mr. Aquarium]

17 hours ago, TylerT123 said:

The only thing I don't like is that the legs get bent, that stinks 

on which bait?

 

[Turtle135]

My local state park reservoir is similar. Lot of skinny dinks but it seems once they can get to a certain size they are able to take advantage of the forage (sunfish, yellow perch, crappie and crayfish) and they get really "tall". I target them on off shore irregularities with jigs.

 

 

[TylerT123]

1 hour ago, Mr. Aquarium said:

on which bait?

 

On the duck, the bat’s wings will bend too

[Mr. Aquarium]

2 hours ago, Turtle135 said:

My local state park reservoir is similar. Lot of skinny dinks but it seems once they can get to a certain size they are able to take advantage of the forage (sunfish, yellow perch, crappie and crayfish) and they get really "tall". I target them on off shore irregularities with jigs.

 

 

ive fished jigs here to an extent mostly flipping and pitchin, may have to try draggin jigs deep. not really much of off shore structure,  pretty much just really steep drops.  one area is like a step. shoreline is super shallow but drops quick into 7-12 feet of water, then drops quick into 20-30 feet.  the south side. has shallow water flat the extends a good amount into the pond then drops quick to 20-30 feet

[Turtle135]

1 hour ago, Mr. Aquarium said:

ive fished jigs here to an extent mostly flipping and pitchin, may have to try draggin jigs deep. not really much of off shore structure,  pretty much just really steep drops.  one area is like a step. shoreline is super shallow but drops quick into 7-12 feet of water, then drops quick into 20-30 feet.  the south side. has shallow water flat the extends a good amount into the pond then drops quick to 20-30 feet

That reservoir I fish does not have a lot of drastic structural changes. If you can find some sunken wood, a rock pile or a change in the direction of the creek channel that will be something the bass will relate to. I spend a lot of time looking at my fish finder and then investigating the irregularity with a jig.

 

I generally only fish this place late fall, winter and early spring. In season they have a boat rental operation (paddle boats, kayaks and canoes) and the recreational crowd will drive you mad.

[Mr. Aquarium]

9 minutes ago, Turtle135 said:

That reservoir I fish does not have a lot of drastic structural changes. If you can find some sunken wood, a rock pile or a change in the direction of the creek channel that will be something the bass will relate to. I spend a lot of time looking at my fish finder and then investigating the irregularity with a jig.

 

I generally only fish this place late fall, winter and early spring. In season they have a boat rental operation (paddle boats, kayaks and canoes) and the recreational crowd will drive you mad.

i gota get my fish finder out there! this place is deep woods, so im the only one out there on a boat. i love it! no pressure. people fish it here or there from shore but they dont catch much, small fish.  
i usually take my kayak out there. 

cant wait to fish it in april when the bass are in prespawn mode! that 7.8 i caught 2 years ago in june, she was a post spawn fish, she has put some poundage on. the growth plus the egg weight! LETS GET HER
i think theres some very large fish that are deep and dont hit the topwater baits as much as the smaller 5 and 6lbs fish

[nighthawk25]

Sounds like the lake my family has a cabin on. Very little fishing pressure with no public access. It's around 120 acres. Shorelines are shallow with steep drop-offs and very little weed cover. I catch a lotta 10-12" bass that are pale and skinny. I have caught 3 bass over 14" and one was my PB (5.5#). The bluegill are also small overall but there some nice crappie in there. I wanna figure it out but haven't been able to catch bigger ones consistently.