Out again!

[John J.]

This time me and my good friend Randy Beasley (on this forum too) went to his house and fished two ponds down the road. It was a pretty warm day got up into the 60s with some gusts up to 15 mph. As darkness fell and the air became chilly for me, and Randy's girlfriend. I had fished all day in the ponds with spinner-baits and a wacky rigged YUM Dinger (Green watermelon pepper back with pearl belly), no luck. So I decided to switch baits, and I went with something that produces a little more vibration. I reached into my tackle box and I picked out my chartruse chatter bait. About the second cast out, BANG! a 13". I threw him into the livewell (going to put the bass we caught into my pond).

I then worked my way to the dam of the pond and cast it parallel to the bank maybe 5 feet off and this time POW! a 14-15 incher! Threw him into the livewell. (every time I caught these bass I yell across the pond to Randy and his girlfriend, "Got one!".) I then made another cast towards the middle of the pond, and worked the chatterbait back to me. It got within 2 feet from the bank (my feet!) when a smaller crappie or bluegill grabbed it, but when I went to set the hook it popped out.

It was a nice day and I had fun. Felt bad catching something and Randy and his GF didn't. But that's fishing....

Randy if you read this, next time we are going on Lake Orange and we're taking my "V" Boat!   8-)

Needless to say I released the two bass into the pond and there are a total of 4 big bass in the pond now. By spring, I hope there will be more! (I will add more!)  

[fisherboy]

nice. do you have minnows or shad in your pond? the bass wouldnt last to long without em

[Clayton]

Hey John J. I too am stocking a pond behind my parents house back home.  I have a friend that has a pond about 2 miles from my parents house.  It has become overpopulated with bass.  I can tell this because the bass size has decreased, it used to produce bass no less than 4lbs, period.  So I have started pulling bass from it and putting them at my parents place.  I have 18 bass and 3 crappie!! It is a very small pond so Im not sure how many more I am going to do.  Good Luck!

[John J.]

We've got plenty of fat head minnows that we stocked the pond with before we stocked fish. We have 20 pounds of fat head minnows and we will stock it with more this spring/summer. There is also an abundant source of food from frogs, crayfish and bugs and also we've been feeding them those small fish pellets. So no doubt these fish will live. Spawning time is comming and I hope that out of the 4 big bass that are in the pond, at least one of them is a female (that way she can spawn).

We have 70 crappie in the pond and dad wants to add more. The way I see it, the crappie will spawn this spring (they are hand sized so they have nothing that will eat them besides birds) and repopulate. If today holds up (on warm weather) I am going to head out onto Orange Lake and fish.  8-)

God bless and good luck stocking your parents pond Clayton!