Need A Little Pond Advice

[Raider Nation Fisher]

I recently discovered a new pond, at least new for me. Try as I might I just can't buy a bite out of this particular pond. I've used flouro leaders on braid, braid, flouro by itself. I've thrown every color crank, spinner, Buzz bait, and frog that I own. I've also gone through all my tubes, jigs, worms, and lizards. Over fished slow, fast, moderate, and slower. And have gotten nary a bite. I know there are bass in here, I've seen them swimming around. Yall got any advice?

Ok here's the description.

Size: 6 acres.

Shape: kind of like an eight.

Water clarity: clear as glass

Vegetation: Cat tails from bank to three feet out. They pretty much ring one half of the pond. The other half is rip rap and dispersed cattails. In the narrowrer middle section there is a weed mat about forty yards long by about ten yards wide, it runs from surface to bottom, about twelve feet deep.

Wood: a couple pilings attached to a deck in one corner. Otherwise none that I've managed to find yet.

Location Birmingham Al.

[Jigfishn10]

A lot of the time small is better than "normal" sized baits in gin clear water. Try a c-rig or drop shot french fry or a 3" grub.

I also like to speed up my reaction type lure. Try burning a spinnerbait or lipless crank. At times that's the ticket.

[zip pow]

I know you said you tried tubes but give this a try use a 4 inch watermelon chartuse strike king salt tube with a 3/16 tube jig head that's my go to pond bait clear or stained water they can't stand the erratic action

[Marty]

Have you fished there under the higher percentage conditions, like early morning, late evening, night and overcast days? If you haven't, I'd certainly try it.

[Lesley]

I had a pond on the farm where I grew up that gave me the same frustrations. It had floating islands of algae which kept the water crystal clear. I could watch the bass ignore everything in my box. Just like you described, I tried fast, slow, big, small, bright, dark, whatever!

Three things always worked in this pond:

1) The long black worm with white spots without a weight. I tried to keep it near the top of the water. I do not know where I got it, but my father told me it is supposed to mimic a baby snake, (and there were a lot of snakes there).

2) The silver Devils Horse. I worked it like a Rapala top water, a jerk just hard enough to get the props to spin for maybe a second, stop until all the rings in the water are almost gone. Then do the process all over again. For some reason the silver one is the only one that worked in this pond, but anything else silver did not work.

3) One time I found and caught a lizard and decided to use it as bait. I only did it once, but as soon as the bait hit the water, something grabbed it and my ten pound test line snapped. I never saw the fish, but I knew there were some huge ones in there, and it fought a little before the line broke, so it couldn't have been a turtle.

I always wanted to try the lizard thing again. I was just lucky enough back then to catch one to use as bait. Haven't caught one since.

[North Ga Hillbilly]

Try a buzzbait in low light conditions

NGaHB

[guitarkid]

Us redneck southern boys don't leave home with out at least one bag of trick worms. And rapalas

-gk

[pitchinthejig]

I would go with a smaller Fluke type bait weightless, a small natural color jig and craw trailer 1/8th to 3/16th oz Max..

If I could see the fish I would take a Ima Flit in Matt blue gill cast it past them reel it to them and stop it in front of them and then just twitch the slack in the line to get it to sit there in front of them while dancing and rolling from you twitching the slack in the line.

if you see active fish I would take a 3/8th oz double williow spinner bait, close the gap in the wire so you can burn it without it lifting to much and burn the heck out of it right under the surface and twitch it at times making the blades clack together it may break the surface at times when you twitch it while burning it but thats fine as it will cause the blades to really clack and that draws strikes a lot of times. Ide go with a White/chart, White/blue, white/green, Sexy shade or blue gill colored spinner bait. if you got a little wind causing the surface to ripple a little then I would say this could stick fish in the pond for sure.

I would go with a Popper when its low light and or a Buzz bait.

This is all great pond tactics here in the south.

My fav is the Ima flit thats a tight lipped fish killer here in ponds and I have stuck many good fish in small ponds here doing just what I told you.

[Hyrule Bass]

try rage tail craws and/or baby craws t-rigged weightless.

also try a white spinnerbait with a red head on it, and if that dont work try adding a 3 inch white grub as a trailer for it.

i would also try a husky jerk silver and orange or a manns one minus silver and black

those have been my best pond baits this year where i live.

oh, and try using mono for line...

if all else fails, go with nightcrawlers just to see what kind/size of bass the pond is holding...

[backwater4]

A small 1/8 or 1/16th black jig w/ a small craw trailer and/or a floating Rapala, either twitched on the surface or fished very slow. If all else fails, a Blue Fox gold inline spinner.

[Bankbeater]

Try at night or in low light conditions. It could be that since the water is so clear you are spooking the fish away.

[Khong Y.]

Here's my best best advice for you when you are throwing everything in the tackle box and nothing is working for you. Come back next time with some live shiner and cast it out.

Catch one that has a big belly and kill it. Catch a male please, and leave the female alone. I know, it's wrong but it's only one. Gut it open and check what it is normally eating in the pond. Find something similar in that type of lure and slowly finest or reel if it's a spinner/swim/crank bait.

[Raider Nation Fisher]

Wow. Tahnks for the advice guys/gals. I'm definately gonna try these suggestions, this weekend. Keep it coming and I'll keep Yall posted on how its working out.

Lesley, I've never thought to use a live lizard before. I'll bet that would work phenomenally. I know using a live snake worked great for me before. I am so trying this suggestion first. Now I just got to find myself a lizard.