Apologies if this belongs in the terminal tackle and lures section...

 

Over the past 6 years I’ve learned a lot about pond and river fishing, in places as diverse as warm canals and clear ponds of south Florida, ponds of Georgia, and cool clear rivers of eastern Ontario for smallmouth.

 

Thanks in large part to Glenn’s site, I can really catch em’ shallow from shore!

 

Now, I am spending more time near home in GA ponds with a jon boat and started profiling the bottom with a Deeper fish finder (yes they make contour maps!)

 

It is August here and the Deeper showed me where the deep channel (about 14 ft) is in our closest small pond, and registered fish down there.

 

Bottom is relatively featureless but the fish finder shows fish hanging suspended above drop offs.

 

Would appreciate hearing about what you suggest to target these bass and also the learning process of transitioning from shallow fishing to fishing deeper waters.

 

Obviously, I need to get down to them.  

 

What would be your first choices?  

 

-Drop shot and Carolina rigs? - seems like it would get too deep for the fish apparently hanging a few feet off bottom.

 

-Deep cranks - not an obvious pond bait, but might work?  Again would likely grind bottom if working right.

 

-Deep fishing cranks/jerkbaits/spinnerbaits?  Ideally, targeted to a few feet above the drop offs.

 

How do you learn to dial in to specific depths?

 

I plan to upsize my weights to get down to depth faster.

 

As always - thanks for any suggestions, guys!

 

I wouldn’t change anything you are already doing.  14’ really isn’t that deep. If you need to change anything size up your crank baits to ones that go a little deeper or slow down your presentations of sinking baits to get them deeper. If bass are hungry and the water isn’t super muddy they’ll come up several feet to eat if they see it, esp with noisy top water baits.  To me deep fishing is 30’ or deeper. 

The easiest thing to do is to watch you tubes ...Fish The Moment . Everything about fishing deep is covered in those videos .

On 8/9/2020 at 11:02 AM, moguy1973 said:

14’ really isn’t that deep. If you need to change anything size up your crank baits to ones that go a little deeper

Thanks.  Today I tried a Bomber Fat Free Shad fingerling (8-10 ft rated diver).

 

Threw into a relatively deep pond channel on a different pond.  The bomber did not make it to the bottom so I could see how it dug along the bottom.  Intercepted by a nice bass before it made it down that deep.

 

It was a short trip but will continue to experiment.

I would use a texas rig with a 1/2 ounce weight on it.  Cast it out as far as you can and then when it hits the water pull off some line to make the bait fall straight down.  Maybe 2 or 3 arms lengths.  Watch the line as you do this to make sure you see bites.  After the bait gets on the bottom either drag it back to you or reel it back with short hops.

Obviously you may need a deeper diving crankbait, but if I'm transitioning between 6 and 16oz, I will often throw a 3/8oz jig, a T-rig with a 1/8or or 1/4oz weight or the like. IMO a 3/8oz jig sinks at a perfect rate for up to around 12ft of water, but you can compensate by just waiting a little longer to hit the bottom.

 

If fishing a drop shot or a ned rig though, I would up the weight just a little.