April 2007 - Volume 68, Issue 4
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Hunting for Fishy Waters continued...
A healthy largemouth bass population is the key to good fishing in ponds. This predatory fish is at the top of the pond food chain. In a balanced system, bass consume many of the small bluegill, which allows the remaining bluegill to grow large. If you remove too many bass from a pond, you’ll end up with an overcrowded, stunted bluegill population. That’s why releasing some of the bass you catch helps to maintain a pond’s overall fishing quality.
Finding Good Ponds
Not all conservation area ponds provide exceptional fishing. The trick is finding the good ones.
Start by looking at conservation area maps and locating out-of-the-way ponds. Because these ponds are lightly visited, fisheries biologists and other anglers aren’t the best sources for fishing information. You may need to evaluate ponds on your own by fishing them.
It’s fun to fish new places, especially when you might discover a fishing gold mine. Will this be the pond that produces the bass of a lifetime or a stringer of 9-inch bluegill? You never know, and that’s a good part of the attraction.
You sometimes can get a good idea of what a pond holds by slowly and quietly walking along its banks and looking for fish. This works best in spring before vegetation becomes thick. You can often tell if a pond contains large bluegill, for example, by looking for tell-tale elephant tracks (spawning beds).
Water temperatures warm quickly in small ponds, so the best spring fishing will begin earlier than in larger lakes. Starting off the spring by fishing ponds is a great way to lengthen the spring fishing season.
Pond Fishing Tactics
You can fish most ponds from shore. Even deeper water is often reachable from the bank. If you’re not sure where in a pond to fish, no problem. Fish it all! After a trip or two, you will learn which areas of the pond produce the most fish.
The tackle and methods you use on larger waters work well on ponds. Many times, they work better, because fish in remote ponds are less lure-shy than fish in easily accessible lakes that receive heavy fishing pressure.
About This Article
Author
JOE BONNEAU has worked for the Department for nearly 10 years, first as a fisheries biologist and now as a fisheries regional supervisor. His hobbies include hunting and fishing, especially
with his wife, Lisa, and their three children,
Donnie, Grant and Kaylynne. They live in Odessa.
Photographer
CLIFF WHITE is a life-long Missouri resident. After nearly 10 years as a staff photographer for the Missouri Department of Conservation, Cliff recently took on management duties as Art Director. Now he supervises on an unruly gang of super-creative folks. In his spare time Cliff likes to play old-time folk and bluegrass music, float fish and chase the occasional turkey.
