Pond winter bass

[plawren53202]

So in the past, I would usually hang up the gear for the winter.  Decided this year I am going to try powering through it and learn winter fishing.

 

The easiest water for me to access is our subdivision HOA lake.  Small (prob. 3 acres or so), doesn't get any deeper than estimated 6 feet in the middle.  Other than one end, it's like a fishbowl, almost no features at all.  One end has some vegetation, that is of course dying/dead now.  The pond doesn't really have any big bass, but enough in the 1/2 to 1 pound range that during warmer weather I can have some fun.  Sometimes I would have days of 20+ in a couple of hours.

 

I'm in Missouri; our temps are currently averaging highs in the 30s to occasional days topping out over 50.  Nights get down in the 20-25 degree range.  I would estimate water temp to be around 40 in the pond right now.  A couple of cold snaps it has just started to ice in the ends, but melted back off.

 

Fishing has consistently gotten harder and harder, so that the last two times out I did not get a bite in 2 hours or so of fishing.  I have tried every winter technique I know of: drop shotting a Yum mini dinger or swimbait; jig with trailer; suspending jerkbait; texas rigged Senko; small Keitech style swimbait; slow rolling a spinnerbait on the bottom.  All of these have been at winter speeds, that is to say slooooooow dragged on the bottom.  Nada.

 

The last couple I caught were just before Thanksgiving; those came on a red craw flat sided squarebill fished just fast enough to dig in the mud bottom.  That technique hasn't worked for me the last times out either.

 

So my question is, given the lack of depth in this pond, is it fruitless for me to try catching them during the winter?  I understand the logic in winter fishing lakes that have some depth i.e. warmer water, but is a shallow pond like this just a different story?  Wanted to hear thoughts from some who have succeeded (or failed) in shallow ponds like this during cold winter weather.  

[WRB]

Give them a rest and fish a larger lake or pond with deeper water.

The highest percentage lure IMO would be 1/4 oz black hair jig with neon blue 2 to 2 1/2" trailer. The bass will eat and a slower lure in the face is your best bet.

Tom

[The Bassman]

I'm in central IN and experience identical circumstances. I'm experiencing some excellent fishing right now. Light spinning and ned rig=success.

[plawren53202]

3 minutes ago, The Bassman said:

I'm in central IN and experience identical circumstances. I'm experiencing some excellent fishing right now. Light spinning and ned rig=success.

I forgot...add this to the list of things I've tried. 

[Sam]

Slim down. Go with smaller baits. Go with crawfish imitations. Fish s-l-o-w, like in "dead sticking."

 

Cast out and wait at least one to five minutes (yes, it is a lifetime in bass fishing) before moving the bait. 

 

Keep finger on line; watch line; and use a transistor radio with ear phones to listen to your favorite music while you stand there looking like a frozen statute. 

 

Then, when you can't take it any more, twitch the rod a little and do it all over again.

 

Maybe the pond has not been managed correctly and all you have are dinks. 

 

Give it a shot and let us know what happens: you catch something; you don't catch anything; they take you away in a straight jacket.

[the reel ess]

Plain 1/4 oz. jighead with Yamamoto Hula Grub or just a twin tail grub.

T rigged craw by itself

Finesse Jig

 

The last bite I got was on a Ned rigged Nikko hellgrammite and it swam off while I was paying no attention to the line, just letting it sit on bottom.But it doesn't get "St. Louis cold" here.

 

[Mobasser]

I'm in North central Mo. Things have slowed way down here. As others have said keep trying something small and slow. I like Kalins 3" grubs, fished very slow on the bottom, with a lift drop retrieve.

[skekoam]

My son and I fished a small pond over the weekend.  Very shallow as well.  I was casting out to the middle where I thought the deepest water is, but I don't think this works in shallow ponds.  All the fish we caught or had bites were probably within 5 ft of the shoreline in 2-3 ft of water.  I started with a T rigged senko, but switched to a Fat Ika dragging across the bottom and caught a few.  Also lost a few since the fat Ika seems harder to set the hook than with other baits.

 

best of luck.

[The Bassman]

Here's another tip if you promise not to tell. Went fishing yesterday with @Midwest Fishermanand he absolutely smoked me with a good ole Blakemore Road Runner. Jimmy Houston would be proud.

[Midwest Fisherman]

31 minutes ago, The Bassman said:

Here's another tip if you promise not to tell. Went fishing yesterday with @Midwest Fishermanand he absolutely smoked me with a good ole Blakemore Road Runner. Jimmy Houston would be proud.

It was a good day, probably more luck than anything. Gotta couple more lucky tricks for next time, lol. 

[Midwest Fisherman]

6 hours ago, plawren53202 said:

So in the past, I would usually hang up the gear for the winter.  Decided this year I am going to try powering through it and learn winter fishing.

 

The easiest water for me to access is our subdivision HOA lake.  Small (prob. 3 acres or so), doesn't get any deeper than estimated 6 feet in the middle.  Other than one end, it's like a fishbowl, almost no features at all.  One end has some vegetation, that is of course dying/dead now.  The pond doesn't really have any big bass, but enough in the 1/2 to 1 pound range that during warmer weather I can have some fun.  Sometimes I would have days of 20+ in a couple of hours.

 

I'm in Missouri; our temps are currently averaging highs in the 30s to occasional days topping out over 50.  Nights get down in the 20-25 degree range.  I would estimate water temp to be around 40 in the pond right now.  A couple of cold snaps it has just started to ice in the ends, but melted back off.

 

Fishing has consistently gotten harder and harder, so that the last two times out I did not get a bite in 2 hours or so of fishing.  I have tried every winter technique I know of: drop shotting a Yum mini dinger or swimbait; jig with trailer; suspending jerkbait; texas rigged Senko; small Keitech style swimbait; slow rolling a spinnerbait on the bottom.  All of these have been at winter speeds, that is to say slooooooow dragged on the bottom.  Nada.

 

The last couple I caught were just before Thanksgiving; those came on a red craw flat sided squarebill fished just fast enough to dig in the mud bottom.  That technique hasn't worked for me the last times out either.

 

So my question is, given the lack of depth in this pond, is it fruitless for me to try catching them during the winter?  I understand the logic in winter fishing lakes that have some depth i.e. warmer water, but is a shallow pond like this just a different story?  Wanted to hear thoughts from some who have succeeded (or failed) in shallow ponds like this during cold winter weather.  

Everything mentioned is great advice. One thing that works for me regardless of pond size or depth is working a foot or so outside the vegetation on the banks and I’ll throw out past the sides of the pond and drag the bait up through the vegetation. Good luck.

[skekoam]

6 minutes ago, Midwest Fisherman said:

Everything mentioned is great advice. One thing that works for me regardless of pond size or depth is working a foot or so outside the vegetation on the banks and I’ll throw out past the sides of the pond and drag the bait up through the vegetation. Good luck.

Can you be a bit more specific as to the lure you use to do this?  I tried it around some tulies with a t rigged senko and kept getting hung up no matter how weedless it was.

[Midwest Fisherman]

6 minutes ago, skekoam said:

Can you be a bit more specific as to the lure you use to do this?  I tried it around some tulies with a t rigged senko and kept getting hung up no matter how weedless it was.

I’ll usually drag a Hula Stick or TRD up the sides of the pond and change up colors and I’ll do the same with a small blade bait just above the vegetation, along the bank usually something with a blade or something that moves water. Nothing specific as the bite and conditions change. For me it’s just a process of elimination until something bites. Also I try and use a paddle tail with any jig head and everything is on the light side 

[Team9nine]

Here’s one I haven’t seen mentioned...small blade baits. Picked up 6 bass walking a couple ponds yesterday on one. Pretty much a staple along with Neds in the winter for me. I most often use the smallest size ThinFisher, but there are others you could try. 

 

[VolFan]

Dont underestimate shallow water, especially on sunnier days - a couple degrees warmer makes a huge difference.

 

And shakey heads, neds, or glidebaits.

[scaleface]

Get some crappie jigs and try to catch anything . Bass will hit it . One of my largest bass ever was caught on a yellow Marabou jig right after ice out , from a pond .

[Black Hawk Basser]

40 minutes ago, scaleface said:

Get some crappie jigs and try to catch anything . Bass will hit it . One of my largest bass ever was caught on a yellow Marabou jig right after ice out , from a pond .

No doubt!  I caught a really nice bass a couple years ago in the late winter that had a tiny hair jig in its lip, apparently from someone losing her a day or two earlier.

 

I've caught numerous 12-17" bass through the ice.  Most of the time I was using tiny 3-4mm jigs for bluegills.

[plawren53202]

1 hour ago, scaleface said:

Get some crappie jigs and try to catch anything . Bass will hit it . One of my largest bass ever was caught on a yellow Marabou jig right after ice out , from a pond .

Now that you mention it, my PB largemouth was an approximately 8 1/2 lber caught on, of all things, a black woolly bugger (flyfishing fly).  I was at a pond casting a new flyrod I had gotten for Christmas, just to see how well it cast, and just threw the woolly bugger on there just to have a fly on the line.  I think I will give downsizing, and in particular hair crappie jigs, a shot in my pond.

[GreenPig]

A Rapala F05 in rainbow trout on 4-6 lb test mono cast parallel to the bank and slowly retrieved with your rod tip just above the water. I've had 20-50 bass days in water temps as low as 38 degrees all caught within 3' of the bank. I also carry a digital meat thermometer in my bank bag so I know the water temp. 

[Bankbeater]

I would try fishing with a small paddle tail swimbait in the early to mid afternoon time-frame after the pond has had a chance to warm up.  If that didn't work I would find some deeper water to fish.

[Midwest Fisherman]

Nice 4 pounder in 37° weather today, most of the pond was iced over so I didn’t have much room to fish. Caught it on the bottom just as the sides started rise. Used Berkley Warpig in Red Craw

[The Bassman]

Drove by that pond mentioned by @Midwest Fishermanan hour before. It was completely skimmed over except for one spot just beginning to open up. We catch bass all winter in these HOA lakes as long as we can get a lure in the water. Hope this encourages the OP to keep with it.

[Koz]

In the winter, timing is everything when it comes to bass fishing. With the cold weather their metabolism slows down so they eat less often so unless you time it just right the fishing is slow. So unless you manage to drop a bait right in front of their nose and get a reaction strike that bite window is fairly narrow this time of year.

 

I fish HOA retention ponds all the time and I know the frustration of fishing them in the winter. And while they seem featureless on the surface they are not under the water. Try fishing near the inlet pipes and outlets first. Then, where the inlet pipes empty into the basin fish that line out towards the middle of the basin. There's a good chance the inlet flow has created even a small channel where the bass may hunker down and use as an ambush point.

 

If its sunny out the concrete outlet risers will tend to heat up a little bit and bass may seek cover and a bit of warmth there.

 

The good news is that with the small retention ponds you can usually cover most of the water to try and locate where the bass are holding in the winter.

[Mr. Aquarium]

My winters are cold and snowy. Some years we are ice fishing all winter others it’s rollercoaster  weather. Cold snowy then warm and rain. So the ponds are still super cold open water  or have some skim ice. 
From what I’ve heard from local fishermen, that do very well, is to fish the north side of the ponds. That area gets the most sun and warms up. Even though it may not be the deepest part of the pond. This is advice for shallow ponds. Less then 15 feet. 

 

I fish  ponds but with some depth. I find these spots to have better fishing. Fishin 20 feet  plus deep over grass near drop offs and points. Some sort of structure. One pond I do well at is only 20 acres. 25 feet deep. The north side of the pond is the only area I fish. There’s a point of where I don’t fish past.  
 

The ponds I fish I use blades, hair jigs, shakey heads and small swimbaits.  Lot of other guys do well with jerkbaits especially in those shallow ponds. But I can’t get bit to save my life on a jerkbait in the shallow ponds. Still trying to learn it.  I have better luck ice fishing for bass with lures at these same ponds I suck at open water fishing in the winter. 

 I have better luck on bigger swimbaits fished like a jerkbait in those shallow ponds then I do with an actual jerkbait!

[The Bassman]

Don't mean to make this post seem like latest catch pic thread but just want to emphasize how productive winter pond fishing can be. Literally had to drive around looking for open water this afternoon. @Midwest Fishermanand myself finally found a few spots to try and got on several pounders. Caught this decent one just before I headed home. Had to drag him (her) across some shore ice.