Any ideas?

[tritz18]

Hey guys, I have been fishing this one pond for about a year now and I have only had success with soft plastics. I'm happy with the fish I catch on soft plastics but I wanna gain more experience in some other techniques. Do u guys have any ideas what other lures or techniques would work in this pond.  There is pretty solid lily pad cover around the pond, at the deepest the pond is about 10 feet deep. The water is also very stained and is full of underwater cover along the shoreline. I have used crankbaits and spinnerbaits with no success.

[.dsaavedra.]

rapala DT 4's and 6's. trust me, they WILL work, you just need to fish them a lot.

[Sam]

Congratulations.  You have found a pond to experiment different presentations, techniques and baits.

Suggestions.

1.  Try a Roostertail.  A small white and gray Roostertail. Be sure to use a barrel swivel on your 6 pound flouro test line to help minimize line twist on your spinning rig.

2.  Throw a small white grub on a 1/16 jig head on same rig as you use for the Roostertail.

3.  Sometimes spinnerbaits and crankbaits do not work in a pond so go to your plastics.  Try a pink or white trick worm fished weightless on a weedless hook on 6 pound flouro line.  You can throw this setup in the pads, over the grass and on top of the water. Lots of fun and you can see the bass inhale the trick worm.

4.  Throw finesse worms, too.  Watermealon and pumpkinseed for starters on a Texas rig.  You can also throw them wacky style.  Use a light bullet weight, pegged if possible.  The lighter the weight, the better.

5.  Senkos.  Work great if there are nice bass in the pond.  Use a 1/0 or 2/0 weedless hook and fish them wacky.  Try the 4 inch variety first and then work up to the 5 inchers.  Watermealon and pumpkinseed are good but you may want to try other colors.  You can also fish them Texas rigged.  Try to use the weedless hooks on all plastics.

6. Topwaters.  Jitterbugs, Pop-Rs, Baby Spooks, frogs of all descriptions and colors and a buzzbait will produce, especially in the early AM and late PM.  Go with the Cavitron buzzbait with the black skirt and use a trailer hook.  If there are small bass, crappie or catfish, they will try to hit the topwaters, too, and the small fish will just knock them around and you will not be able to hook them.

So go out and have fun experimenting.  Just remember that a pond is a living entity and that things do change during the year and from year to year.

If the pond gets low be sure to map it so you will know the tumps and rocks and bottom make up.  Pound some PVC pipe sections along the shore to give the bass an ambush point.  Throw in some rocks.  Plant an old Christmas tree for a brushpile.

Let us know how you do and what those fish like.  That is, like this year!  

[BassFishingMachine]

Hmm, so what Im getting from this is your tired of catching the fish on softbaits and want to do some catchin on hardbaits. With all the lillypads you mentioned I'd try swimming a jig through/around them. If the water is clear, use a greenpumpkin or watermelon color, with a good swimming trailer such as a doubletail grub or Ragetail Chunk, I believe this'll imitate a frog or some critter swimming around the pads. I'd also even try rigging a softplastic frog as trailer on the jig, if you have to trim it in order to fit in on the jig do so, swim that around/through the pads. Another thing I'd try with the jig while using the doubletail grub or craw chunk trailer, is hopping/crawling it inside the pads, I have great results pitching jigs to small pad patches and crawling/hopping them all over it. I heard you mention the water is stained, so I would use a black, black/blue, junebug, or any other dark color, regardless of the color of the fishes forage, a bright color like a firetiger pattern, or chartreuse, or red I think would be worth a shot also.

Another thing I'd try is a chatterbait or chatterfrog, swim that through/around them pads. I'd use a doubletail grub/swimchunk or softplastic frog as the trailer on the chatterbait.

Something else I would give a shot is pitching a hollow frog to the pads, try and land the frog ontop of the pads and then crawl it off, like a frog which was hanging out ontop of the pad fell into the water, after it hits the water I'd give it a good 6sec pause because alot of the times the fish hits the bait directly after it hits the water. If the pauise fails I'd slowly crawl/walk it around the inside of the pads, I catch some quality fish with a hollow frog.

Now I thought what I got from your post was you wanted to stay away from softplastics, but I thought I'd mention this tactic anyhow. A softplastic frog such as a Stanley Ribbit retrieved along the surface around/through the pads is deadly. I know your sick of softplastics, but everybody loves a topwater explosion  8-).