i have a pond! BIG BASS! i caught a 7.8lbser and 5.10 here in june!   its a small pond. deep woods, 30 feet deep! limited shallow water.  the water is stained. 
tons of golden shiners, big shiners like 1lbsers. perch and sunnies!  it has weeds on bottom but not like thick weeds like hydrilla and milfoil. no houses. shore line has some pads but mostly reeds and trees. we are in a drought so the awesome shoreline structure is out of the water. during the high water in spring the trees and reeds are flooded! 

ill fish here and get a couple dinks! ill cruise the drop offs and shoreline but i never had much luck out deep! any tips for figuring out this place???

Carolina Rig.

Ill start with a Cane toad frog bite, or a hollow body frog fished in, and around the junk.  When things really get tough I always go to a weightless 4" senko and fish it very slow.  Lots of pauses and small jerks.  I fish the weeds and if its deeper I'll add a 1/32 bullet weight.  Use as little weight as possible to get the job done.  You get a lot more movement from the bait.  It always works, it just takes patients and be a line watcher for the slightest movement.  Great tough bite technique.  Watermelon red or Junebug for stained water.  If you cant catch them with this technique move on to different waters.

thanks! i will try both! 

34 minutes ago, geo g said:

Ill start with a Cane toad frog bite, or a hollow body frog fished in, and around the junk.  When things really get tough I always go to a weightless 4" senko and fish it very slow.  Lots of pauses and small jerks.  I fish the weeds and if its deeper I'll add a 1/32 bullet weight.  Use as little weight as possible to get the job done.  You get a lot more movement from the bait.  It always works, it just takes patients and be a line watcher for the slightest movement.  Great tough bite technique.  Watermelon red or Junebug for stained water.  If you cant catch them with this technique move on to different waters.

A Carolina Rig doesn't have to be heavy & gets your lure above the grass.

I'd also try some 5" swim baits. You can fish them as shallow or deep as you'd like. Casting a drop shot out into the deeper water and working it back up the slope is another option. A lot of people wouldn't think of a fishing a drop shot in a pond but for finicky fish that may be holding deep... it's hard to beat. I'd also be throwing some white spinnerbaits. Probably with just a single size 5 colorado blade. The last two would obviously be a top water frog, and a senko. The senko could be rigged however you like. C rigged or T rigged, and if the fish are holding shallow, even weightless wacky. 

 

If I had just those things in my box, I'd feel pretty confident. You can target any portion of the water column with those baits, and once you locate the fish, you can dial it in.

ive caught the 7.8 on a swimbait. the 5.10 came on a weedless zoom luke. missed some large fish on the frogs! but ive i fish anything small up shallow its going to get eatin by dinks!  most of my swimbaits are wake baits! got a bunch of slammers! my 7.8 hit a ms slammer deep crank x2 9inch blue gill!