Which Ponds Produce Large Bass?

[3bd4]

Hey guys,

How long does it take you guys to "write off" a pond as not having any big bass in it? The reason I ask is because there is a pond about 5 minutes away from where I live that I fish often. It's a great pond for catching large numbers of bass but I have never really caught anything over about 2 pounds in it. I am beginning to wonder if there even are any 5+ pound fish in the pond at all. Are there any lures or techniques you guys could recommend to me to find any larger fish in this pond?

Thanks, Brad

[Fat-G]

The pond may very well be overpopulated. Not enough bluegill + too many small bass = stunted growth of all species.

As for catching bigger fish, try throwing bigger lures around ambush points.

[psuangler91]

There are two local ponds that I fish.

Pond A

is about ten feet deep at the max and about three times the size of Pond B. The largest bass I've caught from there was 18 in long and weighed between 2 and 3 pounds(estimate). There aren't a ton of bluegill in it but there are lots of frogs and the bass population is healthy but you don't catch a fish on every cast. There's alot of weed growth against the bank and I routinely see bass crush frogs off the surface of these weeds.

Pond B

is about 4 feet deep at the max, maybe 3 feet and I can cast completely across the pond from anywhere on shore. This is mostly where I take my girlfriend to fish so she catches a lot. There are a ton of very small bass and loads of bluegill(fun on a fly rod!). The largest bass i've caught from there is the one in my avatar and it was about 16" but a real whopper for that pond. I caught him on a popper fly which I landed right inside the edge of a large cat tail clump which takes up one end of the pond.

From my experience at these and other ponds I'd say if you find a ridiculous amount of dinks, i.e. you catch one on every cast, there aren't going to be too many hogs in there. Bass need a decent amount of oxygen so a really shallow pond like pond b won't be conducive to growing big ones because a bigger bass will need more oxygen and a small shallow pond warms faster decreasing the amount of oxygen the water holds.

I don't know where you're from but for us we go to ponds to catch easy fish and I know I'm not going to pull a monster out of them so I don't really write ponds off, but I hope this helped a little. If you do find one with 5+ pounders I'd keep it quiet. Nothing worse than having a good fishing hole that gets over run.

[Greed]

Persistence pays off my friend, I primarily fish two bodies of water that are both less than 150 acres and they're both decent for size and numbers. It took me over a year to develop patterns on one of the lakes for big fish but I had to fish it every way/time possible to figure out where/when the best time is.

The average catch for that body of water is 14-16" but with what I know I can estimate one out of four/five fish is going to be a 19-22" fish for me. With the biggest being a 6.25# Bass, nothing big but a good catch for my area.

[3bd4]

Thanks for all the excellent advice so far everyone. Does anyone think it would be okay to throw a 12' plastic worm in winter in cold water to target the larger bass? I have always heard it is best to downsize your presentation in winter so I didn't know if this would work or not? Thanks again guys.

Brad

[Greed]

From my experiences, the two presentation that I use for winter bass are a lipess crankbait and a jig. There are others that would recommend a jerkbait and that's fine but I personally don't use many hard jerk baits for lmb. I rely on using the lipless crankbait as a searchbait hoping for a reaction strike. Once I get a hook up I'll work a jig every way possible and everywhere near where I caught the fish, fish markers help for this also.

It also helps to have an idea as to where the fish will be holding in the winter time in your body of water. Knowing where the bass are will save you the time of finding them all you have to do then is find out what will make them react.

[3bd4]

Thanks Greed. I like that idea a lot and it makes sense. What kind of trailers are you using on your jigs?

[CAdeltaLipRipper]

Our friend has a pond which he used to take care of,cleaned it all the time,made sure all the vegetation doesn't take over everything etc. All the pond had was bass,mosquito fish,channel cats, and crawdads, and just the various dragonflies and frogs that were food sources.Those fish were pretty decent sized. Then he never really had time anymore, and he kinda just let the pond go do its own thing.

The fish's growth seemed very stunted,with mass numbers of mainly 7inch to 12 inch at best fish.There were a few random good sized fish ud see in there,but ud never catch them. I did catch a 7 pounder out of there like 4 or 5 years ago,but that was when he still took care of the pond.(the pond is pretty small too,probably about 30 yards long) and it was the ponds "momma bass".Anyway, about a year or two ago he put a lot of bluegill in there, and it obviously increased the growth of the bass, the average fish being around 12 inches now, with quite a few more 16 inch plus fish in there that u can see. Today, there was a fallen down tree with some brush around it thats been in that spot for a long time, and i flipped a coffee tube in there and i caught a 3 pounder,which is the biggest fish ive caught in there since that 7 pounder from years and years ago. So obviously, with that new huge food staple in there, the fish have responded really positively

[CAdeltaLipRipper]

Sorry i didnt see the lure recommendation part of your question.To catch bigger bass,id recommend using the heavier gear in thicker cover and bigger lures. I catch the better fish in that pond by throwing frogs into the thicker matted areas, and like today flipped into pretty thick cover with my flippin stick and a coffee tube and pulled out a very nice fish. U probably wont get as much action,but if u work hard in those areas,throwing things like senkos,tubes,jigs, and frogs, u should pull out some higher quality fish

[Diggy]

I lived somewhere for 8 years before I caught something over 5lbs...might have been my choice of baits or the fish have finally grown. Ive caght 4,5,6 recently in my neighborhood

[Raul]

You can never know when a pond has big fish in it or not, my friend Pedro had 3 ponds at his grandfather´s farm, we fished them for years and all we caught were dinks, it was fun cuz you caught one after another for hours, but no big fish, then one day ..... I caught my first 10+ pound fish from one of the ponds, not only I caught that fish that day, caught a nine pounder and lost right at my feet another big fish that same say. I was there at the right time with the right bait and the right presentation.

[Hyrule Bass]

You can never know when a pond has big fish in it or not, my friend Pedro had 3 ponds at his grandfather´s farm, we fished them for years and all we caught were dinks, it was fun cuz you caught one after another for hours, but no big fish, then one day ..... I caught my first 10+ pound fish from one of the ponds, not only I caught that fish that day, caught a nine pounder and lost right at my feet another big fish that same say. I was there at the right time with the right bait and the right presentation.

i agree with this. i have an uncle with a small shallow farm pond. i fished it heavily for the last couple years and only caught one fish in the 20 inch range. this year i caught that same fish a couple times in the late winter/early spring. near summer this year i was fishing it during an on and off rainy day and caught two fish in the 20 inch range in the same day. one had a "flesh wound" is how i distinguished the two fish. havent caught either of those fish since either, they bite a lot less frequently than the smaller bass in that pond, unless i put on a small blue gill for bait.

the good thing about the pond, is i watched the bass grow in size and in population this last couple years, this year seems to have really taken off. this is basically without any pond management. the two differences this year i think is weve had a substantial amount of big rains that lasted days, the remnants of hurricanes and such. i believe the drain pipe that controls the depth got clogged up and the pond was a foot or two deeper than normal, it flooded over top some of the grass beds the bass like to hide under. also there is also a slow running spring that feeds the pond, last winter when it wasnt grown over i cleaned up some tree limbs and old fence posts that were kind of restricting the springs flow into the pond, not sure if that helped anything, but i felt better about it anyways...

[NCLifetimer]

You can never know when a pond has big fish in it or not,

+1 more to that. Fished on a family farm pond for 10 years before I caught one over 3 pounds. Today between me and a friend we caught a 7,6,5 and a 4 lbs and about a dozen other fish.

In my experience, ponds with both shallow water and deep water that aren't completely clear cut along with sides hold big bass.

[Raider Nation Fisher]

There is a particular pond I fish a lot that has heavy heavy pressure on it. It is fished almost all day during the week and all night during the weekends. It sits between the road and has three steep hills surrounding the other sides. One of the hills is about a 60* slope and the other two run flat for about thirty yards back from the pond then start up at a 45* slope. The pond isn't but maybe ten or twelve acres in size. Anyway. I was always told that there used to be 8+ lb bass in this pond, but no one had caught anything over 3lbs in about 7 years. This was told to me by both locals and friends. Well on my second month of fishing this pond and catching mostly 2 and 3lbrs. I figured out through my wonderful skills in observation what most everybody was throwing. So I went and threw something entirely different then what they were using and wham I got drilled by a 6lbr. It absolutely astounded the people a little further down the tree line when they saw that fish. I never did tell them what I was using and have kept an outside the box perspective on what I throw there and when I throw it. To my knowledge I'm currently the only one that fishes there that catches the fish over 3lbs. Outside the box fishing can be a very good thing.

[robdob]

go to www.pondboss.com and get in their forum.. you can learn so much about pond fishing and pond management just from reading on the website. if most of the fish you catch around around the same size and skinny then that pond is either overpopulated with bass or under populated with forage.. or both. very common in small ponds that arent being actively managed by their owner. a good indicator would be if you look around the pond and find it common to see bass jumping out of the water after dragon flies.. they do that anywhere in any lake but they do that very frequently in a pond that does not have enough forage fish

[capt.pete]

From my experiences, the two presentation that I use for winter bass are a lipess crankbait and a jig. There are others that would recommend a jerkbait and that's fine but I personally don't use many hard jerk baits for lmb. I rely on using the lipless crankbait as a searchbait hoping for a reaction strike. Once I get a hook up I'll work a jig every way possible and everywhere near where I caught the fish, fish markers help for this also.

It also helps to have an idea as to where the fish will be holding in the winter time in your body of water. Knowing where the bass are will save you the time of finding them all you have to do then is find out what will make them react.

[capt.pete]

Here's my strategy when fishing ponds from shoreline. During cold water periods in Florida, I locate the deepest hole in the pond. I will fan-cast and count-down my 1/4 oz leadhead jig to the bottom. Once the deepest portion is found, I will fish it with only two different colors of a Berkley Powerbait, or Gulp, 3 or 4 inch black or white grub...keep it simple. I love black during the day and will switch to white as low light sets in. After casting, I let the jig hit bottom then give it two forceful vertical rod jerks to attract the fish. Then, I will very slowly straight-retrieve the jig. The strike in the cold water will resemble a snag until you set the hook then the fight is on. Fishing this technique has resulted in countless bass in the 6-9 lb range with the largest a few ounces over 14 lbs. NEW LURE: Recently I've been fishing a prototype metal jig called the Sonic BaitFish, made by Mack's Lure in Wenatchee, WA. It's an amazing lure for anything that swims and can be vertically jigged (7) different ways and cast or trolled. See illustration in my attachment in addition to one of my many bass. (Just advised that my upload was skipped because "the file was too big to upload"...sorry.) I love casting the 1/10 or 1/6 oz sizes. So far, only the silver finish has been available to me. I cast it with the hook attached to the tail or nose with a duo lock snap attached to the opposite end. It's deadly especially during late evening hours. Either fast-retrieve it over the surface where it "gurgles" on the surface or striaght slow retrieve it as soon as it hits water. Straight retrieves work better during the day where it runs deeper. The Sonic BaitFish will be one of the very best versatile lures you will ever use once it becomes available! Capt Pete

[capt.pete]

Hopefully these attachments for the Sonic baitFish will go through. Capt. Pete PS: Still will not work...sorry!!!

[3bd4]

Thanks for the responses so far everyone. I hope to take a little bit from what everyone has said and apply it to my pond. Capt. Pete, I found it really intresting that you used a small grub like that to catch large bass like you have! I will def. be trying this asap. Thanks again everyone and keep the responses coming!