Late winter, small water

[Drew03cmc]

I fish a handful of ponds from 1 to 10 acres outside of Kansas City. Water temps are around 35 degrees and I'm jonesing for a bite. I've tried a Ned rig, slow rolled a chatterbait, but can't get bit. I'm wondering what your approach would be. Most of these have a max depth of about 12 feet. I'm considering taking a wacky rig setup and tossing some Senkos or Trick Worms, Finesse Worms, etc. Maybe crawl a jig, but the bottoms are weedy still. Any ideas please?

[Bluebasser86]

Jerkbait, a small one. A 65 pointer is my go to right after ice out for our little lakes. 6 or 8lb mono on a medium or ML spinning rod and very soft little twitches. It catches a lot of little ones, but it catches a fair share of those 3+lb fish that are good quality in most public lakes in the area. This was one of those bonus fish from a little 8 acre public lake down by me in February a couple years ago. The bait is similar to the Aurora Brown color but not exactly, not sure what color it is, I bought it on clearance. Not much paint left on it anymore though. 

 

[Drew03cmc]

32 minutes ago, Bluebasser86 said:

Jerkbait, a small one. A 65 pointer is my go to right after ice out for our little lakes. 6 or 8lb mono on a medium or ML spinning rod and very soft little twitches. It catches a lot of little ones, but it catches a fair share of those 3+lb fish that are good quality in most public lakes in the area. This was one of those bonus fish from a little 8 acre public lake down by me in February a couple years ago. The bait is similar to the Aurora Brown color but not exactly, not sure what color it is, I bought it on clearance. Not much paint left on it anymore though. 

 

I have 78s, but I guess I need to try the 65 in winter. Our ponds are so mucky that jigs are hard to use.

[Bluebasser86]

3 minutes ago, Drew03cmc said:

I have 78s, but I guess I need to try the 65 in winter. Our ponds are so mucky that jigs are hard to use.

That's the issue that makes pretty much any bottom contact baits in the ponds I fish, too much slime and leaves. 

[The Bassman]

These are my exact circumstances here in IN. I've been catching all winter with the ned rig and just the other day did real well with a small blade bait. Very little jerkbait use. I'm sure it's just a confidence thing since I'm so used to the finesse stuff. The bottom of my lakes do have a lot of bright green "snot moss" and I'm sure they're mucky. I use a very light head (1/32-1/16) to try to keep the bait up a bit. I've found that using a single inline hook on the back of my blades helps, too. I still have to clean them off a lot, though.

[Crestliner2008]

The jerkbait would be ideal under your conditions. However, you have to have a lot of patience between twitches. You might also consider a wacky rigged 4" Senko under a slip bobber. Set the bobber so that the worm is about a foot off the bottom. I've taken some nice bass under those conditions this way.

[the reel ess]

A crappie jig under a float. The original float n fly. And you might get some action from panfish or catfish too.