Getting stumped at a new spot

[Mike Merder]

Hi folks.  I'm here in Southern Indiana and recently got access to a pond that's rarely fished.  I normally do mostly Kayak and bank fishing and this pond is about 2 acres.  Problem is that it's so full of fish, I'm having trouble getting to any good size bass.  The bluegill are very aggressive and are tiny and in big numbers.  I've tried my usual pond techniques such as drop shot, finesse, spinnerbaits, and mini topwaters.  I haven't been able to catch a bass over about 10", and the channel cats keeps hitting my ned rigs.  There's been zero interest in any topwater, even the mini buzzbaits and crappie tackle I normally get success with on small ponds.  What else should I try?  Am I right that all the fish in this pond are tiny?  Any live bait gets stripped off the hook by the little bluegill in a matter of seconds.  Thanks!

[MacJig]

I can't speak specifically to your pond or the conditions surrounding it but for my favorite pond all they seem to hit are the texas rig craws. The strike king rage craw, Berkley pit boss and Yamamoto flappin hog are some of the favorites in green pumpkin. Bass caught are around the 1 -3 lb range: most around 1 - 2 lbs. give or take. That's all that seems to work for me in that area. You may want to give it a try. 

[Teal]

It could be a case that the bass numbers are down due to a abundance of bream.

[Fishes in trees]

That pond is out of balanced and needs to be fish out.  Too many bluegill - got catch some bluegill.  I ran into a similar situation years ago - many teeny tiny bluegills/ other panfish - all around 3 to 4 inches long - really too small to do anything with.  Didn't go to that pond for a while - what was the point?   Then a different friend - not a fishing friend, but an organic gardener, mentioned what good a 5 gallon bucket or 2 of teeny tiny fish would do for his compost pit.

 

After a conversation with the pond owner about what needed to happen to the pond, I got several  buds together and we went blue gill fishing.  Everyone had a different idea about how to go about catching tiny blue gills, what I did was throw 1/16 oz rooster tails and I filled a 5 gallon bucket up.   Between all of us we filled up several 5 gallon buckets.

Organic gardener was grateful and it helped the pond out some.  It has been a while now so I've lost track of how that pond is doing now.   I know we didn't hurt it.

[Eric Matechak]

my best advice for you is to follow the patterns. Fish follow specific patterns in every season. A few oddball fish will break from the general pattern and do their own thing. You don't care about those screwy fish. Figure out what the bulk of the fish are doing and meet them where they are, biting what they are. That is how you'll catch fish. You can't use the same approach from lake to lake and regardless of season and expect it to always work.

 

find the current pattern.

Edited June 21, 2020 by Eric Matechak

[Log Catcher]

I have to agree with @Fishes in trees. That pond needs to be fished and have a lot of bream taken out of it. It sounds like it is very overcrowded. It may take a few years for it to recover and the bass to grow to a decent size.