Pond Scouting

[RPreeb]

I went out today scouting some of the water closest to home.  Should have taken a thermometer with me, but since the air temp was only 48° at noon, the water can't be too warm.  This is Tamarack Pond, one of the 2 small ponds (2 to 2½ acres) that I use for practice.  I caught some small LM here last year.  I haven't wetted a line yet this year, but I'm thinking that Thursday I'll take the canoe out to a 100 acre pond just a few minutes north of this one - that will be it's maiden voyage if the wind cooperates. 

 

[Sam]

Have fun.

 

Always interesting to study a pond.

 

Are you going to throw a Carolina rig to see what is on the bottom?

[RPreeb]

1 hour ago, Sam said:

Have fun.

 

Always interesting to study a pond.

 

Are you going to throw a Carolina rig to see what is on the bottom?

Not a clue at this point.  When I get out there, I'm first going to paddle around a little and see what I can find out just looking around.  The 100 acre pond has about 500 yards of rip-rap at the dam, with a lot of brush around the rest.  Some of the brushy areas are partly flooded, so I'll work that with something.  I also plan to try slow fishing a jerkbait and see what happens.  Mostly I'll just be doing a lot of guessing.  I've never fished this one at all before.  I don't have any electronics, so if I can't see it, I don't know what's there.

 

The smaller 2 acre ponds which I have fished this last year, for them I know that weightless 4" ribbon tail worms get bit, as do 5" senko type worms, and I've also caught them there on poppers.  I'm expecting that fishing fairly slow with weightless plastics, or T-rigged with a 3/16 tungsten bullet will probably be my best bet.  

 

I've never fished this early in the year, so my challenge just trying to figure out what's there, what they might want to eat, and how to present it.  It's only a couple of weeks ago that there was still ice on all 3 bodies of water.  Getting skunked is a definite possibility, but on a sunny, 70° day, just being out in the canoe will be reward enough.

 

 

[Adam.love05]

Enjoy it.. if the sun is out I would definitely focus on the rip rap as the sun will tend to warm the rocks up faster and might bring the fish in closer.. definitely a jerkbait, crankbait, I'd also try a little underspin with a finesse swim bait as well.. 

[RPreeb]

Took the canoe out for its maiden voyage today.  Beautiful day, 70° and only a light breeze that kept starting and stopping, coming from every point on the compass.  Never fished this pond/reservoir (100 acres) before, but there are supposed to be both largemouth and smallmouth in it.  If there are, then they are all still in hiding. 

 

I tried worms weightless and T-rigged with 3/16 tungsten bullet...  nothing.  Tried a jerkbait... nope.  Switched to a DT Flat crank and caught a 17" walleye and an 8" white crappie.  After a bit I switched to a 6-8 foot bluegill crankbait and caught another walleye, then it seemed to shut down.  At least that was the last action I saw.  All in all it was still a good day, despite the lack of bass.

[Adam.love05]

42 minutes ago, RPreeb said:

Took the canoe out for its maiden voyage today.  Beautiful day, 70° and only a light breeze that kept starting and stopping, coming from every point on the compass.  Never fished this pond/reservoir (100 acres) before, but there are supposed to be both largemouth and smallmouth in it.  If there are, then they are all still in hiding. 

 

I tried worms weightless and T-rigged with 3/16 tungsten bullet...  nothing.  Tried a jerkbait... nope.  Switched to a DT Flat crank and caught a 17" walleye and an 8" white crappie.  After a bit I switched to a 6-8 foot bluegill crankbait and caught another walleye, then it seemed to shut down.  At least that was the last action I saw.  All in all it was still a good day, despite the lack of bass.

Awesome! Glad you were able to catch a few fish! Must've felt great. It was 34° today so I found a little stretch of river to fish below a dam.. but they had the hydro plant bypass open so the current was pretty swift, so definitely no fish but nice to get out. 

[Airman4754]

Ned Rig. It will fix your problem. 

[shovelmouth83]

texas rig.....bango cant go wrong there. you can crawl it hop it. you can even do weightless so it gets more strike time... good luck and most of all have fun..