Paul Roberts

Ditto. Tin I copied your post into another related thread about Big Bass Pond Size. Hope that's OK.

Great post. 25C (77F) year round! Wow. That's about perfect bass growing temp.

I want to tack this post from Tin on here:

Snow cover on the ice stops photosynthesis and oxygen depletes. It seems the important factors are depth and amount of nutrients. I have 4 foot deep ponds that don't winterkill right next to 4-footers that do. The difference is density of vegetation. The ponds with lots of decaying vegetation winterkill. Some ponds have kills in certain areas but also have refuges. You really gotta go see for yourself to judge whether a pond is worth pursuing.

J Francho brought up a really good question: How much depth does a pond need to grow "big" bass. Or, is depth a limitation? Can a shallow pond produce larger bass? Now, "quality" varies regionally. In my area I'm talking about bass over 19" (4lbs). The question: Do you know of a pond(s) that gives up big bass, that are under, say, 12-feet in depth?

John, No I don't. And the "big" bass I tend to catch run 18 to 20 inches -considered quality fish (the big girls) in many waters -the 3 to 5lbers I believe we are talking about here. I can give you examples of what I do fish: -I have fished many ponds that grow mature bass (18"-20") that are less than 8 feet, some only 4 feet deep. Winterkill is the biggest threat. -I have one pond that I currently fish that, at high water, is 11 feet max, and averages 6-7. I've seen it drop a foot and half for a full year at times. It has a large number of 19-20inch fish. For bigger fish, depth is probably be a plus, but I can't speak to that; And I haven't looked it -yet. It's been on my list. Would love to hear from others about this question. Anyone else know ponds that give up numbers of quality fish, and it's known depth? Worth a thread I think. Here's an interesting theoretical observation: Doug Hannon had a huge outdoor aquarium in which he kept very large (DD) bass. It was 4feet deep) He found after a time (couple months as I remember it) he would eventually find the bass floating at the top and having difficulty maintaining equilibrium. They would then die of exposure. He found when he increased the depth to 6 feet, this did not happen. He surmised that such large bass may have difficulty maintaining their gas bladder and require some pressure (depth) to maintain it. Now there are lots of possible other factors, (were these "deepwater" fish forced to live shallow, was this a disease, etc ...) so we really don't know whether the speculation is true.

Dunno. One of the smaller lake-front bays. Braddocks? Don't really know that one though. Not Buck, not Port. Long?

H or C??

Great report. My guess is you were close to them. My guess is that cove/shoreline attracted fish bc of temp and food (with the temp, and maybe the waves). The girls were there, just bunched up. Again, my guess is you were very close. I have to disagree. Depth IS a plus, but not always necessary. Also, BIG lures can cull out smaller fish, but are not necessary for larger ones. For the larger fish (the girls), esp in the coldwater period, location is most important. I do chase temps, and it can be a really strong pattern, but not a dependable one can't rely on the weather, and confounding conditions. But when it happens the fish are truly stacked, and stoked. I do notice some blue in the pic and sunshine. Was the area with the fish different in temp from other areas? (I'm not certain how much I have to factor in the waves. They are an advantage for feeding fish.) I'd love to see the sat image or map of this pond. It's compass orientation, topographical configuration, wind direction in relation to those stacked' fish. I'm going to PM you guys and ask some more specific questions. Hope that's OK.

Chris you certainly don't come off as a braggart. The joy you express when talking fishing is front and center.

I do! I do! But... I'd be better off stocking it with trout where I live at 8600ft. With my current budget I'd probably have to hand dig it. Anyone want to help?? ;D

Good article. Nice insights into species interactions. Love the Pond Boss material. Thanks, Glenn. Well...I hate to be a party pooper... In ponds in which you built from the ground up or are the manager and have the means to manage it, I suppose the job of understanding how it ticks could be made simpler. But, most of us fish in ponds that are not carefully managed and monitored. Thus, "we gets what we gets", and figuring out why a pond is the way it isn't readily apparent. Great if it's just bass and bluegills, or bass and perch, but what if it's bass, bluegills, perch, crappie, channel cats, and ... ? What if water levels change? What about fertility? Vegetation types? Variable growth years in vegetation. My ponds just don't stay the same, left to their own devices.

I wonder if this angler caught the majority of his DD fish years ago, when fishing pressure was not so intense as it probably is now. If your goal is to catch specific and big old fish nowadays, and any number of them, you probably are limiting yourself by not using all available methods. But I like the limitations I impose on myself. Like leaving bait fishing for fly-fishing for trout and steelhead so many years ago. Maybe the best example is my hunting. I gave up the rifle for the compound bow, then the compound for the traditional, then to the primitive -bows I make myself by hiking into the woods and cutting down the tree. Limitations can heighten satisfaction. Here's a cool limitation a very good elk hunter once embarked on. He decided to try to take a specific elk calf with a primitive bow (25 yard range). Calves are by far the best eating, but are also well protected within a herd of sharp-eyed cows. Now that kind of limitation is pretty cool, in that it doesn't involve bragging -most hunters wouldn't even realize it as maybe the supreme elk hunting challenge. All that said, the game surrounding the catching of truly giant bass just doesn't exist where I live. The vast majority of the mature bass here die at 18 to 20inches. Maybe I'd be wrapped up in that game if I had it -always the chance to catch one quite a bit bigger. And to succeed, under stiff competition, one might have to relax limitations. But knowing myself, some years I might do it, for the experience, then drift off to other ways. I'd most probably try to catch a really big one on a fly-rod and a fly design I invented (I actually don't own a fly I didn't invent, or at least tied myself). The numbers or tally sheet just wouldn't be my game in the end. My hat's off to those that have that goal. And I'm very pleased to hear what knowledge these practitioners will share. It's all good.

You've supplied little info that would make me think otherwise: Sounds like this is an old dammed pond (V shape) deep at one end and shallow in the V apex where the inlet/seepage drains in. Clay (silted) bottom, no vegetation, old nearly branchless wood, are not very promising in themselves. I'd like to hear about vegetation, rip-rap, influxes of current, and especially preyfishes like bluegills, perch, golden shiners, (and small bass too), etc... However, I do know a large pond that has no vegetation that I wrote off several years ago that a friend recently re-introduced me to. It turned out to have a productive pelagic food chain and reasonable numbers of mature bass. I've also known similar ponds that support some mature bass on a diet of their own progeny -larger bass are happy to eat small bass. So...be aware of possibilities. But those possibilities are recognizable. Don't be surprised that if your water has an old silted in basin, little substantial cover, and few prey fishes, it also holds precious few quality-sized bass. It would be worth scoping the rubbly shorelines during the spawn to spot the mature bass on beds. This can be a good way way ta assess size and numbers.

Nice images. Makes me homesick (kindof -maybe nostalgic?) One morning I was almost fired from BE for being late AGAIN! Pat was PO'd. I was at NP and lost track of time. It was a relatively new pond then I was told. Lotsa milfoil as I remember it.

Skip the topwaters (except maybe the #11), and use a small jerkbait. Don't forget the pauses LOL!

OK, ran a dry land test. Hiked to a meadow out back and set waypoints (WP) at a rock pile, a shrub, and a set of 3 stumps. Targets were roughly 8 feet across. I set the proximity alarm to 0.1mi (~50ft) -lowest it would go and a reasonable casting distance from the target. The unit gave me EPEs (Estimated Position Errors) of ~20 to 45ft. But I was able to receive the proximity alarm consistently within a cast away from the target. Now these are objects I can see, so who knows what it'll be like on the water. But since my waters are small I should be able to orient visually pretty well. One neat thing that might pan out on the water is that the unit draws a line from me to my WP. The unit appeared to be pretty sensitive about my immediate position from that line. Trying to run this test blind I looked only at the unit and adjusted to the line and came up a cast away each time. This with a shoreline object to line up on should give me something to work with. Because the fix bounces around I would slow down as I got within about 75ft (as per the unit) and move in slowly. This kept me from blundering into my safe casting distance. WAAS (as promised) kicked in and out, and at one point appeared to throw everything off terribly. I set a WP under WAAS, and when the unit lost WAAS as I was approaching, it appeared to throw my WP way off. This only happened once though, so I'll just have to see whether that pops up again. So...we'll see how it works out on the water. Oh, btw, the unit is a Lowrance M68c.

First, are their fish using this location? You are still talking fairly cold water (<60F) so: -Ditto the original floating Rapala, fished as a topwater. I like the #11 twitched when water <60F), and a #13 waked when above. A jointed #11 is a good waker too. These balsa Raps land as quietly as a bait can and trigger strikes really well. -8cm X-Rap will fish shallow (>3ft) if you keep the rod tip up and give jerks upwards. A floating line (braid or mono) helps. -Smallish paddle-tail grubs or shad bodies. -Mepps Aglia #2 or #3 -Small jumpbait, if water is >60F. Zara Puppy is good (for northern bass), although I like 'em a little bigger (3-1/2"). -If waters warmer (~>60) a 6inch slim plastic worm; choose your rig, brand, and color.

Catfish (channels, flatheads) are faster and more aggressive predators than bullheads. Bullheads are slower and less visual than the cats. It's easier to catch cats on lures than bullheads -in my experience. I remember another: I spotted a pod of small carp (~10") in slightly roiled water. They held just below the surface and I could see their gold flashes. I tossed a #2 Mepps Aglia below them and one zipped over and I felt a tap. I cast again and this time I timed the visual and hooked one -inside the mouth -he took it! I caught two more this way. They were aggressively chasing and smacking that spinner.

NP Park? I gotta try a guess at each of your pix.

BassinSoldier, that is an awesome site!

That first "catfish" image is of a bullhead, not a cat. And that is somewhat unusual. Cats take do lures pretty well at times. I've caught bullheads on lures too but not often. I did see some large brown bullheads actually surface feeding under lights at night on shad during a shad spawn. That was a cool, and unusual, thing to see. Bullfrogs are darned easy to catch -they are really aggressive, and will chase a topwater lure for some way. I often have to avoid a 15ft radius of shoreline around each bullfrog to avoid catching 'em! Hmmmm.. -I once caught a fishing rod with a carp at the other end. -Two perch on one plug -one on each hook. -Accidently hooked a dog by the ear! Not proud of that one. -Oh yeah, a striped bass head! Hooked a small striper and a BIG bluefish knarfed it, leaving me only the head on my fly. -A friend brought out a new lure he'd bought and started singing it's praises. He boasted (in fun) that he would probably catch the biggest walleye. We all said "Yeah, Yeah..." Then he set the hook! "I've got one! It's big! It's...heavy. It's...YUCK!!!" It was a big and long dead rotting walleye that stunk to high heaven! It was hooked by the rear treble through the upper lip! We all laughed pretty hard, except for the catcher -he had to unhook that stinking thing to get his lure back. -One more: We were night fishing for walleye. My buddy Phil shouted "Get the net!! It's a BIG one!!!" Our friend Di, grabbed the net and ran over. "Don't you miss him!! warned Phil. Di watched the line coming in like a hawk, then made his stab at the first sign of....THE HOTDOG Phil had stuck on his hook!

You could paint a stripe on its side! Years ago, when I was cooped up one winter , I made a bass from an old sheet; sewed and stuffed it and then painted it with watercolor. I used a cardboard tube section for an open mouth. With fabric in the mouth I could cast and hook it. Is there any limit to obsession? ;D Oh yeah...no there appears to be no limit in sight: I'd take a heavy spin-cast set up I had and tie a rag to the 20# mono and cast it in the yard for the dogs to chase. We had two: a Corgi, that fought like a bullhead, and a Borzoi (a greyhound variation) that fought like a sailfish! She could really get that drag singing! And she jumped and bucked like...a sailfish! Cripe...here's another. I'd make a weighed "mouse" from a piece of fake fur, hide in the bushes, and cast it out onto the snow for red-tailed hawks. The best I ever got were a couple fly-by's. Seriously, stay safe. The bass will be here when you get back. Oh yeah, there was a thread here on fishing in Iraq. Lots of neat and strange fish the GI's were catching. Might want to search it. Maybe you'll stumble in on something you didn't know was there.

Good post! As to women fishing I've found my wife would rather be in the garden or reading a book on shore, and best chatting with a friend (which could be me except..."Sorry honey, there's a sunken hump out there I just found and clouds are due in any time now, and ...". ) It's the serious part, the planning and execution stuff, she really doesn't get, and I thrive on. "And then throw them back?? :" she'll say. Oh yes...before we were married...she wanted to go fishing with me anytime. But, I guess I did crazy things too then. Hormones have a way of re-arranging your priorities.

Very well put. We all make a lot of assumptions.