BigMinnow

I have a few other places I fish and can reliably catch em. This pond is more of my personal challenge, and I want to see if I can figure out it’s secrets.

@Catt @Mobasser @Ski213 okay, I could see the majority of people were recommending t-rigged senkos so I’ll cave in. I bought some black, chartreuse, and white 4” and 5” senkos. Honestly, I have avoided fishing senkos for a long while so I’m rusty on technique. Since you guys were the first few to suggest them, would you mind sharing how you fish em? What kind of method do you use? Should I just cast past the strike zone and then just slowly drag it back? Pop the rod tip and jiggle it? Bullet weight or weightless? What works for you guys? I went out shopping yesterday, now im just waiting for a semi-nice day to get out and try these ponds! Excited to try all these new baits!

This is actually something I never even thought of trying. Definitely gonna give this one a go. I love a buzz bait bite, but can’t seem to make it happen on this pond. Nights are still a little chilly near me, but once it’s comfortable out it’s game on!! Never had much luck with top waters in this pond, but you’re not wrong! Top water is hands down the most fun way to fish. I’ll give the hula poppers a try early morning or late evening sometime soon. It’s funny that you say that. Just the other day my buddy and I were CRUSHING them on whopper ploppers, although not this pond that I’m talking about, but another pond very near by. Haha I guess (the smarter) people are just scared to throw those $12 baits into the thick of it!

You guys are gonna break my bank!! But it’s okay, I’ve been itching to buy more tackle. As for everyone recommending t-rigged senkos, I know it works but gosh darn is it boring. Also, I feel in a very murky pond, I just have to get lucky and happen to drag or pop my worm next to a fish. The t-rigged worm doesn’t lend itself to being easily located in water that looks like black coffee. I will be shopping tomorrow, but still taking suggestions! Make sure you mention colors!!

Do you have a color preference for low visibility?? @bass4life....

@Bird what color/size spinners and buzzbaits. Colorado blades or willows? Trailers?? Haha I need some info!

Here’s my situation: I’m trying to fish one of the public ponds in my area. This pond is small (about 1-1.5 acres) and has a wide variety of structure: some rocks near the shore, pads in shallow pockets and banks, an island in the center, a fenced off sewer drain that sits about 4ft from shore, milfoil/algae that is about 2-3ft tall in pockets, and a small dock in about 1-2 ft of water. There are a bluegill, crappie, and shiners in the pond as well as bass and cats. The water clarity is atrocious. Maybe 1.5ft of visibility on a good day. There’s a small feeder creek that constantly churns up the pond making it muddy and the trees all around add a lot of stain. Also, the bottom is black and mucky. The only reason I know there’s plants in the pond is because I always end up dragging them out on my treble hooks lol. This pond is also heavily pressured, it’s located right next to a playground and pavilion so the public definitely knows about and fishes the crap out of this pond. That being said, I’m sure these bass are pretty spooky. If you guys had to bring only 1 bait to this pond to catch a bass, what are you bringing, what are you throwing it on, and why? My goal is to buy some of the baits you guys recommend and give em a try and I’ll let you know who’s right!

So my buddy and I recently got all the stuff you need to ice fish (a few rods, some buckets, and we even put our money together for a nice fish finder). We’ve been hitting our local ponds with some luck here and there but they are no more than 8ft deep and finding fish isn’t necessarily a challenge. we want to step up our game and try a bigger lake with some deeper water. But we don’t even know where to begin looking for fish. We’d love to hook into some bass but bluegill/crappie/perch would all be fun too. could you guys take a look at our lakes map and give us some advice on where to start looking for fish??

Yeah, today at work we were able to fish some of the farm ponds. The smaller ponds are getting cooler and we pulled 4 out using a drop shot and a ned rig off the bottom. Definitely boosted my confidence in that type of presentation and I’ll definitely be trying it on a real lake next time I’m out! @Boomstick, @Armtx77, & @Ktho I really appreciate you guys taking the time to check out the map and point us in the right direction. We will definitely try as many of the spots you guys suggested as we can. I’ve read a lot about fall fishing now, and I see that finding the bait will really help us find the fish

@BigAngus752 we tried fishing the northern, less wind beaten side of the causeway on our lake. With it being our first time out in real water we weren’t super comfortable being near the rocks on the southern, wind beaten side. The waves were picking up and our anchor wasn’t holding us very still so we figured we’d stay on the calmer side. As we get more experience under our belt we’ll have to try fishing the more wind beaten structures. All in all thanks for the advice!

@Mjmj what kind of stuff do you throw in those areas? And what angle do you normally cast at? Like do you cast to the flat and reel to the drop off? Cast to the drop off and reel to the flat? Just cast parallel to the drop off?? We could use a little advice on how to fish open water

Thanks for your guy’s suggestions! @Dens228 I was throwing underspins and spinners all day long. But we’ll try the shallows next to deeps the next time we go out! Thanks! @Cdn Angler my buddy threw a jerk bait for about an hour but no luck. Neither of us are good with a drop shot, but definitely something we’ll have to try next time. I’m also thinking that we just went right in the slowest part of the day. By 8am it was already bright out and fishing is almost a lost cause around noon. We’ll have to try later closer to sunset and see how that works. @GreenPig never had any luck on a jerk bait. We tried throwing one for a minute or two but we weren’t sure if we were fishing the right areas for it to be effective. Where do you throw em at??

@Johnpenguin yeah, when we handed over our left over night crawlers to a man at the dock he said after July fishing has really slowed down. Still would like to beat the odds and rip some lips from my buddy’s new boat though. Just not too sure where to start.

So my buddy just got a new boat and we put it out on Pymatuning lake in Eastern Ohio. We fished for about 5 hours and didn’t get a single hit. We fished rip rap, pads, the wall of the causeway, and even deeper in the flats by the channel. Nothin. I know getting skunked is just part of the the game, but if anyone has any tips on what to look for in fall patterns I’d appreciate it. My buddy and I are not familiar with fishing bigger waters. We mostly fish ponds smaller than 3 archers and only 8ft deep so we were kinda at a loss for what we should be doing. Just some general info: Water temps were around 65° today and it was pretty windy. Gusts up to 18mph so we were drifting around pretty good. It was partly cloudy, 75° day. We fished from 8am-1pm and we threw the kitchen sink at em so I don’t think it was our lure selection causing us bad luck. Any tips help! I’ve included a map of the reservoir in case you guys want to check it out and maybe point us in the right direction. Thanks!

Thanks for the help guys. Really. @redmexican5081 would bait balls still show up on wide or medium beam angle? I’m trying to find bait but I don’t know what I’m looking for or how to discern it from debris in the water

I just bought my first fish finder a couple weeks ago. It’s the Deeper Chirp. It does pretty much everything I needed a beginner fish finder to do but I need help discerning between what are fish and what aren’t. To preface, these pictures are on the lowest beam angle, so they’re the most precise recordings. As for the color palate, orange is hard bottom, brown is soft bottom, green is supposedly vegetation, and their website says yellow arches are fish. So my general questions are, if the yellow arches are fish, how do I tell how deep they actually are? And how do I discern species (if I can.)? Lastly, there’s a toggleable fish icon setting. They suggest using it for begginers and turning it off once you become comfortable with the units when it’s on, the unit seems to place the icons way above the arches. Is that the right location for them?? Or would the fish actually be sitting deeper? Now, as for specific scans, do these scans look like bait?? I read somewhere that bait is supposed to show up like clouds. and without the fish icons, would these arches be fish? My guess is sitting right around 5-5.5 ft deep? and lastly, if the yellow is fish, what does it mean to have a red mark (high density) return in a fish ark?? Is that indicative of a huge fish?? I know, a lot of questions and I should probably watch a YouTube video on how to read a 2D fish finder. I just wanted to ask these forums because you guys are usually super helpful. Thanks in advance for all all your input guys.

Thanks for all the suggestions guys! I’d never heard of a worm binder before, but you better believe I’m on the hunt for one now. Those look like they’re really handy. As for my issue, I ended up just super glueing some elastic onto the in side of my box. Then I just tuck the hooks and bodies behind the elastic and let the blades hang over the other side. It’s not the most conventional way of doing things but it holds em the way I need it to. Thanks again!

So like any bass fisherman I have WAY to many lures to take with me on every bank fishing trip, so I keep a small tackle box in my car for those impromptu sessions. I try and keep that tackle box small and compact, easy to carry around. I have all of my lures and plastics sorted out and everything is pretty much filled up. My problem is that I can’t fit my spinners and buzbaits into the plastic containers without bending down the wires. So I was just going to hook em to the back of the box somehow but I don’t want to just embed them into the fabric because I know for sure that the barb will make it near impossible to get them back out without cutting the fabric of the box. so I’m looking for some suggestions or clever tricks on how to make a hook/lure holder for the outside of my tackle box. Got any ideas??

So I just bought a new Deeper Chirp fish finder and it’s my very first fish finder. Today I took it out on a local pond and I got some good time getting used to how to read it and identify structure. But in the deepest part of the pond (~10.5 ft) there was a ton of noise at the 6ft mark. I threw a Carolina rig down there to see if it was actually a bunch of vegetation but I didn’t pull up any weeds or get snagged. No resistance other than dragging it along the soft bottom. So could someone tell me what the green and yellow could actually be? Also, I had another scan just a little way away from this area. This scan looks like some kind of boulder with a few fish arches right next to it. Is that the right (ish) way to interpret that scan?

The reservoir I’ve been fishing has been incredibly low lately. So low that most of the vegetation is now out of the water and most if not all of the major creek arms are dried up or very very short. What are your guys suggestions on how to fish this place? I don’t have any electronics and I’m fishing out of a kayak so I can only bring one or two rods

I just started fishing at this small reservoir down the street from me. I’ve been there a few days in a row now and I usually catch one or two for the couple hours I’m there. The water levels are very low, like most of the major creek arms are dried up except for the creek beds. I haven’t caught enough in the same places to establish a pattern so I was wondering what spots would be the best place to look for fish. I’m assuming most of you will just say to cover as much water as possible, and if that’s the case, what baits make the best search baits?

I’ve tried a frog but I haven’t had much luck on them, just half assed hits, same as when I used the Pop-R’s. Whenever I’m fishing the frog I usually look to cast into the thick stuff and pull it into the pockets of open water within the weeds. Then I let it soak and twitch. Is that how you guys would fish it?? I have tried a worm T-Rigged but it had a pegged 1/2 oz bullet weight. Next time I go out I’ll try a smaller weight and one of my trick worms. And there is a weed line. I haven’t tried to fish it yet but I figure a rattle trap along side the edge might produce? What do you guys think?? @JediAmoeba I haven’t tested depth other than right at the edge of the start of the Coontail. But does the depth of the center of the pond really matter when the only structure I can see is just all the weeds? I don’t ever have much luck fishing the open water.

@Bass Whoopin' I’ve tried jigging but it’s difficult to drag the jigs or punch baits through the Coontail because it’s so thick and deep. If I had a better kayak with a standing platform I’d have a much easier time jigging. But seeing as I’m sitting right at the water level, it makes using jigs and Texas rigged baits pretty difficult. As for wacky rig and drop shot suggestions, I’m cautious about using an open hook because of all the weeds. An exposed hook near all those plants spells snags for sure.

I checked out a local pond a few weeks ago and there was absolutely no chance of shore fishing since there are 20 ft of weeds before the water. So I kinda forgot about the pond until I was recently gifted a cheep sit in kayak. Today I took the kayak out and got to see the full pond/lake. It’s about 10acres and it’s essentially just one big circle and I’m assuming it’s deepest point is right in the Center at about 20-25ft. All around the edges there is a huge amount of Coontail. Like A TON of Coontail. And then just beyond the Coontail is about 20ft of Lilly pads before the shore. The pads stick up out of the water and the Coontail seems to extend beneath the pads all the way to the shore as well. At the Coontail’s edge the water seems to be about 7 to 8 ft deep. I put in a pic to try and show you how much Coontail there is before the pads. There’s no other structure other than the Coontail and pads. The water is pretty warm, maybe about 70-75°, and it’s stained but has good visibility. So given that, this lake seems to be bream heaven. Just passing through the Coontail spooks 10 or 20 bream every few feet. I see a lot of fish pecking the surface and even a few bream going fully out of the water from time to time but I don’t see any big fish activity. I’ve tried Pop-R’s, the bream and little 6” bass have hit em, but all the hits seem to be half assed. Like they go to hit and just kinda slap at it instead. How can I remedy that to get more hookups? With this big of a lake, I’m sure it’s safe to assume there’s bass bigger than 6 inches in here. Could you guys give me advice as to how would you would fish this lake?

I'm looking to buy some rods and reels for ice fishing. Seeing as how I've never ice fished before I don't know how much thought I need to put into buying the "correct" rods and reels. Ideally I'd like about 3-4 rods each for different species or different applications. I really like Fenwick's regular rods so I think I'm going to buy rods from them. I've got a couple picked out for bass to trout to panfish. My question lies in reel selection. Do I have to consider gear ratios (retrieve speed) as much as I do in regular fishing reels. Like normally, if I'm flippin' and pitchin' in the summer I like a fast gear ratio for a quick retrieve, which provides the ability for rapid presentations. Seeing as ice fishing is essentially only vertical jigging, does gear ratio matter in the same regard? Is it based more on species? For example, if I'm fishing for trout would I need something that can reel faster in case they swim directly towards me, Vs. fishing for panfish where I might not need to bring in line as quickly? Does gear ratio even matter? What brands are good and reliable? Geek out, the more detailed and opinionated reply you can give, the better!