DewittBassmaster Posted June 6, 2008 Posted June 6, 2008 I fish at my decent sized neighborhood pond. During the pre-spawn right after the ice freezes, I caught five 4lb largemouth this year. Once the water warmed up it seems like those bass are nowhere to be found. I keep catching little dinks. It's frustrating because I know there is some pigs in there. Just wondering if anybody has any advice to give me about staying away from the dinks and catchin the pigs. I fish off shore and in a canoe. Thanks. Quote
JShrock07 Posted June 6, 2008 Posted June 6, 2008 One thing that I can tell you is "big dish big bait" don't fish with little 4" worms. use a bait that you would think a big bass would go after to fill it up! I like to fish with a 10-12" worms they usually produce the bigger sized bass!!! Good luck to you an let me know how that works for you Quote
Super User Paul Roberts Posted June 6, 2008 Super User Posted June 6, 2008 Prespawn, especially in the north where there is a pronounced coldwater period (ice) and a rapid-warm-up period, females will be concentrated (after wintering together). Once you find them, it'll skew your expectations for the rest of the year! (This happens in the late fall again too BTW). After spawning, females go to summer quarters that may not be together. Likely your big females are distributed around the pond. It truly is a hunt for individual fish. But, look for the best areas, those that have really good cover and the most appropriate-sized prey: 5" or better bluegills, or 6" or better perch, or what have you. Several larger bass may occupy some areas, if the areas are large enough to support several larger bass. Post-spawn and pre-summer, if you have bluegills, spawning gill colonies offer concentrations of mature gills that attract big females. Fish outside of them, especially those with some depth and cover close to the edge of the colonies. Pre-summer into fall, if there is away-from-shore structure (humps, or long points) these would be key locations. I find these, mark them with a buoy, and re-visit them throughout the day. If there are shallow slop (dense matted surface vegetation/algae) areas, these would be worth checking too, provided the weeds have some depth (3-4feet) and preferably a canopy so bass are not restricted in their hunting. (However in some of my shallower ponds just two feet of water with matted algae -often windblown- can hold pre-summer bass. In a shallow pond in MI, you may find bass in such areas all summer). Slop areas with hard cover pieces, like wood or boulders, and weed type transitions (reeds?), may be focal as they offer breaks in the slop for hunting. Come summer, when the water temps get higher (~>85F) the mature bass may become less active in midday, and when the weed beds get denser they'll be harder to get to. If this happens where you are, try deep water (if available and oxygenated), at night, early AM, periods of deep overcast, and evenings. The former three are often the most consistent, at least in my waters that heat up above the mid-80s. Since you are in MI, your waters may not heat up too high and you'll likely get into some good fishing all day. Those dinks you are catching become heavy feeders of insects and young of the year fishes as water warms. They become aggressive biters that are willing to chase making them easy to catch, even a nuisance. They exist in hunting groups I call 'wolf packs' that cruise around making a nuisance of themselves to those looking for bigger fish. Bigger fish are less apt to cruise so openly or at least so continuously as they are energetically more reserved. I fished a pond yesterday that has a large year class of 7-8 inchers, (which bodes well for the future), so many in fact that I caught two doubles on a crankbait! I avoided them by going up in lure size, and not setting into those smaller pecks and grabs. I did find 3 bigger fish (4-5lb range) and they were each in different locations around the pond, and all associated with heavy coontail patches. Good luck. Quote
peidy_p Posted June 6, 2008 Posted June 6, 2008 One thing that I can tell you is "big dish big bait" don't fish with little 4" worms. use a bait that you would think a big bass would go after to fill it up! I like to fish with a 10-12" worms they usually produce the bigger sized bass!!! Good luck to you an let me know how that works for you I agree Quote
Super User Catt Posted June 6, 2008 Super User Posted June 6, 2008 It aint about bait choice; it's about location because you sure can't catch 'em where they ain't. Quote
Super User Sam Posted June 6, 2008 Super User Posted June 6, 2008 Same thing occurred in my local pond. Since the spawn is over in the pond down here in Virginia, I have seen the larger bass moving around and I hooked one while fishing for bream using a small one-inch white grub on a 1/64 jighead. The bluegill are on their beds now so the bass will be in their neighborhoods. Paul Roberts' information is right on target. Copy what he says and paste it on a Word document and save it in your "fishing" file for future reference. I will suggest throwing a wacky rigged Senko or a finesse worm to try to locate them on the bottom. If that does not work, you may want to try a moving bait like a crankbait, spinnerbait, Chatterbait, Rat-L-Trap, topwater frogs, Spooks and jitterbugs. Trick worms are fun. I like pink and one of the mods likes white. If you can fish the pond in the early AM or late PM before sundown throw a buzzbait. Catt is also correct, you have to find where they are staging unless they just cruise the pond. Have fun finding them. Quote
Super User fishfordollars Posted June 6, 2008 Super User Posted June 6, 2008 Get out a c-rig or a dd22. They will let you know where the offshore structure is located. Find it and you should find the larger fish. Quote
DewittBassmaster Posted June 10, 2008 Author Posted June 10, 2008 Thanks for all the help. Just got done fishing it an hour ago and caught the first 3 1/2 pounder since April! Quote
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.