I have been pounding out the hours in a deer stand the last few days to no avail. However, I did take a break for a few hours to "mess around" in a little pond we built behind our hunting cabin.

It was supposed to be about a 12 acre pond, but it ended up only being about 8. We stocked it with catfish bluegill and bass spaced out like the book says. Along the way though we somehow managed to mess up and our bluegill numbers got doubled. We have trapped some out but I feared our bass were stunted for sure. I have not fished it a lot but it has been almost all bug eyed melon head dinks to this point.

We got out there the other day and my much to my surprise my stepbrother hooked up with a nice 3lb'er off a hula popper of all things on the second cast. Hula popers don't make it onto the end of my line much any time of year, but especially in 40 degree temps. I guess I have always thought of top-water as a technique for aggressively feeding bass. A few cast later I was pleasantly surprised to hook into a nice healthy 5.5 pounder on my own baby bass Pop-R. We didn't catch many more but with the pond only being about 2.5 years old I was happy with that size fish.

Guess I will have to rethink not only my top water fishing habits, but my pond management beliefs as well.

In cold water situations, like you said, I pretty much never have a top water bait on. But when I do it is a Pop-r. The reason is because of the pace in which I like to fish it. Popping the bait and waiting 10-15 seconds aggravates the heck out of those sluggish fish.

So overall I like to think of it as a sllllooowww technique that forces those fish to bite, and in some cases that's the only thing that works for me.

WTG Boss and I agree w/Vinny  that slow noisy presentation works magic in a lot of cold waters around the country... Bass and Bucks is a great way to approach the outdoors  lol.

Big O

www.ragetail.com

You trapped out some gills? If your gill population has doubled then that is great! That is what you want. They are the food for all your predatory fish. For a healthy pond/lake you want a controlled population of predators and over population in prey. If your bass do become stunted, then you remove some bass not the gills.

The Subject of this thread is great....I totally was looking forward to what deer hunting bass would be like.  I do some blast and casting...taking a shotgun during waterfowl season with me while I fish.

In cold water situations, like you said, I pretty much never have a top water bait on. But when I do it is a Pop-r. The reason is because of the pace in which I like to fish it. Popping the bait and waiting 10-15 seconds aggravates the heck out of those sluggish fish.

So overall I like to think of it as a sllllooowww technique that forces those fish to bite, and in some cases that's the only thing that works for me.

Yea that makes sense. I was just popping it pretty gentle with long pauses in between. During a hot topwater bite when it is warmer I really like to work it pretty fast with maybe 2sec pauses tops... Both the fish I caught on the Pop-R hit it after it had been sitting for a few seconds...The nice one hit it while I was talking to my stepbrother in the back of the boat ;D

I have had turkey's come down to the waters edge for a drink while I was fishing one summer, but never any deer...I have seen a deer swimming out in the middle of the lake before. That was wild.