My PB 10lbs was caught on a rebel BIG CLAW CRAWFISH crankbaits 4:30/5:00am.

Small ponds always have some fish bigger than you might think in them.  The trick is getting to where they are.

 

When I was in college, my roommates and I would fish at a small lake near campus that was virtually unknown to other CT anglers.  It was (what we thought) an unnamed lake next to a nice trout river (after some rigorous research, we found out the name of the lake -  Spring Lake - kinda like the Springfield of lake names lol).  Anyways, shore fishing always brought a bunch of small bass with a 2 pounder mixed in every now and then. 

 

Then one day, we happened to have waders (we had been fly fishing in the river nearby) so we put 'em on and found a flat area to wade out a bit.  On different occaisions, we all caught bass in excess of 6 pounds there (my PB of 7 lb 4 oz on a tube bait).  As it happened, since we had waded about 15-20 feet from shore, we now had access to a nice drop-off with enormous fish nearby.

 

Years later, one of the guys went back with a john boat and pulled out several 5-7 pounders.

 

So, yeah, there are big fish in small lakes, but sometimes you gotta have a boat to get to them.  For me, my favorite lakes nearby are no-boat lakes. 

My brother and I do some fairly serious pond hopping and his PR, prior to us making yearly migrations to FL, was a 6lb fish he pulled out of a small pond no more than 50 yards wide at any point. It's fairly off the beaten path and I'm not sure anyone else even knows it exists, which is d**n near impossible in NJ. It would probably take you no more than 2-3 minutes to walk completely around, but has a great population of bait fish. They're there.

Every mud puddle that can hold a bass in it coughed up a 10 pounder, according to at least one random guy fishing that day I'm there. Seriously, every single time I hit a shore spot, there's some random guy talking about a 4,5,6,7,8,9, or 10 pounder caught there. I let my own personal results tell the truth, and I generally keep it to myself.

 

I had a chuckle reading this.  Same thing happened to me.  I pulled in my PR from a small neighborhood pond. 5.4 pounds.  A passerby said that's average for this place. I literally haven't caught one bigger than 2 pounds since. 

I caught a 7 pounder in a lake about a 1/4 of an acre, and 5 feet(at the deepest part).it was skinny as heck but hey it's still 7 pounds. Oh yeah I caught it on a pumpkin zoom finesse worm on a spot remover shake your head.

Size is only one factor to producing big bass. The small body of water needs to have a constant replenished source of food and mild winters, enough depth or spring water to sustain a big bass population.

Some very small ( less than 5 acres) rock quarry lakes with a stream feeding then are very small, deep and produce some big bass. I caught a 12 lb NLMB as a teenager from a quarry lake less than 3 acres in size.

Spring Lake is about the same size as Castaic lagoon, (130-170 acres) deep cold water small lakes with trout populations and giant bass populations, just check out Butch Brown video's. The populations crashed when the trout plants stopped. Limited trout plants have resumed in CA, the big bass could return within 6 years.

Tom

Ya, my buddy had an 8lber out of a pond about 2 acres.

One of the smallest lakes I fish also gave up the biggest bass I've ever caught in Kansas.

Yes my PB which is 7lbs 2oz came out of my barely 4 acre neighborhood pond and it was also right by shore! Others are right as well. A 1 acre pond can hold decent sized bass.