T.Killian

I think I should edit my post as most of this has turned into what is a slab a big crappie or a big blue gill.. Well I was using it as a general term.. Had some real nice blue gill, and the biggest crappie was 16''.

No we had some problems with the head gate. The pond is over 20 years old but just 8 years ago we drained it for the first time to dredge some sand out due to years of it building up around the creek channel. We do have an area with rocks that extends out into the water to about 15ft deep. We also have a long line of stumps that are about 20 feet deep. And the back side of the pond is about 8-10 ft and is full of brush piles and root systems that are up on side. Then there are a few other stump and brush piles around the lake as well.

Very Good points everyone thanks! We have been strictly catch and release but its very possible that we finally just got to many fish for the volume of water.

Well other than Blue Gill, and I think the correct name is ?Sun Perch? we did not have any other source of food really. I'm begining to think that the fish feeder was uping the size of our Blue Gill so fast that it cut down on the time of opportunity for the LMB to eat them before they get to be slabs, and I mean monster 1.5"-1.75" thick slabs.

Unfortunatly we had to drain our 5 acre pond last week. But there is something that I can't seem to comprehend that happend with our fish. The last time the lake was drained was in 2000. We stocked up with LMB and Blue Gill. Another note is that during most of the year we have a timed feeder to throw out fish food in the early morning and late in the evening. During about the 5th year we had some awesome fish for a pond, not uncommon to go catch 5 at 3+ in an hour. This year I noticed the size either dropped or something had changed in their behavior I was not sure of which untill we drained the lake. We used a very large wire basket to catch all the fish and transport the ones that lived to another pond less than 1/4 mile away. But as I suspected the numbers of bigger fish were not there. I'd say only 10 fish over 3 lbs. Biggest unfortunaly did not make it due to temp changes or mud in the gills but it was 6.7 lbs. Still had great numbers of bass but my question is really just do all ponds do this or was something wrong? Oh and by the way I'd say 85-90% of the fish were 1.5-2 lbs.

As someone else stated on the board we all are probably over thinking the whole concept of catching fish. But its so easy to do with all the new baits that come out every other day! All of us are looking for the magic bait, when I honestly am starting to believe that the magic comes from the confidence you have when fishing a certain technique. It would probably be in our best intrests to slow down and pick about 5-6 techniques, go catch fish with them, gain confidence, and stick with them.

No that makes sense, that was my initial thought as well. For what little testing I did today I'm thinking about putting a creature bait on it like the reactive inovations sweet beaver and try to swim it threw some brush and see how that works out.

Thanks for the welcome! I really have read alot of very useful information on this forum. And about the U-head I'm going to test it out in my sink with some floating worms, it might be the best "shakey" rig around and we just didn't know it yet.

Has anyone seen these new U-head, jig heads? I noticed them at wal-mart and got a couple backs just because it was something different. I havn't got to the water with them yet, so has anyone tried them out?

I had some Trilene Fluro but it didn't cast well for me. So now I'm using the rest of that spool on Crig leaders. I hope I just had a bad batch be/c with that line you could literally put your reel on a broomstick and if a fish even mouths the bait it feels like a slam.

The Stanely Ribbit in Catpulta and GPmkn/Pearl has been killer this year for me. The explosions are alot more violent than any top water bait I have ever fished. As far as hooks, the Zoom HT 5/0 is the way to go, skin hook it in the back between the legs like shown in a previous post, and the cork screw type holder is very helpful as the strikes are so violent you will loose the frog without it. I was setting the hook to early for the first few and quickly learned that if your burning it to keep the rod tip high and when the strike happens to completely stop the retrive and keep the rod still. If the fish still has it, you will feel it load up, if nothing is happening keep letting it fall with maybe a slight twitch, the fish will come back as it believes the first strike just injuried the bait and now its falling threw the water column for another slam.