3 Simple Steps for Pond Bass Fishing Success

Ponds provide outstanding opportunities to catch largemouth bass, often with easy access that can be gained by walking the bank or using a canoe, kayak or johnboat. Intentionally thinking about pond distinctions and how pond bass behave can help you be far more effective catching fish. First, consider the season and conditions. Then identify high-percentage fish-holding spots and choose lures that are proven producers for pond bass fishing.

This systematic approach takes away much of the guessing and random searching. You still must find the fish and figure out the day’s most productive pattern, but these steps shorten the searching process and dramatically increase your chances of finding success.

A starting point to a successful pond fishing trip is to consider the likely holding zones and behavior of the bass based on factors like the season, the color of the water, time of day, temperature, amount of cloud cover, wind and barometric pressure. Intentional surveying of the fish’s likely mood, something pond fishermen too often overlook, can help you prioritize places to focus efforts and to pick the best lures and presentations.

Spring and fall generally draw fish extra shallow, while summer and winter push them down slopes. However, it’s important to consider where you are in the season and how that affects the way fish should be moving and whether the water is apt to be trending warmer or cooler.

Factors like wind creating a chop, low barometric pressure and stain in the water tend to put fish in attack mode, favoring aggressive presentations that make bass chase and trigger attacks. Clear, calm water, high pressure and cooling conditions, meanwhile, tend to turn fish fussier, making smaller, more natural looking lures and subtle presentations that coax strikes extra effective.

Fish behavior sometime defies logic, and finding key locations and lure presentations often requires experimentation and patterning. That said, proactively thinking about the situation and devising your initial strategy accordingly can substantially shorten the patterning process, resulting in more productive fishing time.

Not all pond spots are the same. Before you make the first cast, survey the pond both visually and with a map or online satellite imagery and think about the spots that should hold the best concentrations of fish. Key areas are the pond’s dam, inflows, points, channel swings, weed edges and isolated pieces of cover.

• Pond Dam – If you know nothing about a pond’s best fishing spots, its dam provides a great starting point. A dam provides a line of structure, often with riprap along it and deeper water against it, and the channel normally runs all the way to the dam. Key areas along a pond dam are its corners and the zone near any type of water control structure, where the creek channel normally runs and where localized current positions fish and makes them more active if water is running into the structure.
• Inflows – Wherever water flows into a pond – whether it’s a main channel an intermittent flow that’s running because of a recent storm – bass tend to be nearby because the fresh flow delivers food and dissolved oxygen, often provides thermal refuge and sometimes creates eddies and ambush positions. Pond inflows are often quite localized and not places where you can spend a lot of time and continue catching fish, but if accessible they absolutely warrant some casts.
• Points – A point of land is almost like a cheat code because it provides such a range of depths and habitat types in a limited area. Prominent points that extend toward or even all the way to a creek channel are primary, but even a subtle point along an otherwise uniform bank can provide more habitat for fish and create ambush positions.
• Channel Swings – Anywhere an inundated creek channel makes a hard bend is apt to hold fish, with the very best bends being those that swing close to the pond’s banks and have deadfalls or other cover stretching down into them. If you have access to a topo map or have electronics in a boat, that makes it easy. Otherwise look at satellite imagery online to see how much you can discern about how the channel runs. Also study the bank slope. If the bank suddenly gets steeper for a stretch and then returns to the prevalent grade, that’s probably a place where old channel swings close.
• Weed Edges – Vegetation of many kinds holds crawfish, bluegills, minnows and other bass foods and provides hiding places for the bass. Whether you’re talking about pads, hyacinths, eelgrass, coontail, water willow or some other type of “weeds,” fish hold along the edges and near gaps and cuts, watching for unsuspecting food to pass too close.
• Isolated Cover – Other cover is tougher to simply name because offerings vary substantially from pond to pond. A key spot could be a prominent downed tree, a rockpile, a dock, a stump row or something else. Look for those features that make one spot different from everything else and that provide hiding places for the bass.

When you fish for pond bass, it’s important to realize that they don’t behave the same as reservoir fish or river fish. Differences in the normal prevalent forage and available habitat drive these variances. Many ponds don’t have shad in them, so sunfish, minnows, crawfish and insects are the primary forage. Also, most ponds have far less offshore structure than larger waterways, and open-water current seldom impacts positioning of fish.

The result of these differences is that bass orient more heavily to the bank, structure connected to the bank and shallow cover than do many bass in larger waterways. The most consistently productive lures work well in these types of areas and effectively imitate common pond forage. Five excellent lures for pond bass in many situations are a Rebel Pop-R, YUM Dinger, BOOYAH Pond Magic Buzz, Bandit 100 and Smithwick Rattlin’ Rogue.

• Rebel Pop-R – At 2 1/2 inches, the original P60 Pop-R is big enough for easy casting and to appeal to big bass but small enough to match the smaller forage that is common in shallow water. You can work it quickly or slowly to make a big range of strike-prompting sounds.
• YUM Dinger – The YUM Dinger is a proven producer for all kinds of water and is truly exceptional for pond bass. Texas rigged – with or without a small bullet-style sinker – or wacky rigged or nose hooked for more open spots, it offers a shape and falling action that bass absolutely cannot resist.
• BOOYAH Pond Magic Buzz – This 1/8-ounce buzzbait suggests a small, easy meal and can be fished through sparse cover. It’s ideal for covering water whether you’re walking a pond bank or working it from a boat to find the most active bass.
• Bandit 100 – Moderate in size and wobble, a Bandit 100 works wonderfully for imitating a bluegill or a crawfish. It dives to around 5 feet, which is perfect for many pond fishing situations, and the corners on the bill help it deflect dock posts, stumps, brush and other cover.
• Smithwick Rattlin’ Rogue – Suspending jerkbaits draw more headlines these days, but the classic Floating Rattlin’ Rogue is ideal for imitating a shiner and working a pond’s edges. You can swim it, add jerks to accentuate the “Rogue Roll,” or go extra old-school by working it mostly on top with twitches and jerks to make it dive and return to the top.