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"I finally caught some decent bass in my pond today - on live bait. In that one acre pond I have been fishing for a year without catching anything over 3 pounds, today I got a 5 and a 6, and lost another 5.  Amazing that I could fish right on those fish and not hook them for  a year!" Ronnie

Related Resources • Live Bait Fishing Poll

Past Articles One Year Ago - 11/13/00 - Crappie Fishing Survey Two Years Ago - 11/22/99 - Why Do I Fish Three Years Ago - 11/16/09 - Depthfinders Four Years Ago -11/17/97 - Late Fall/November Fishing Patterns

I have two ponds on some property I bought two years ago. The upper pond is just under an acre and drained about six years ago when muskrats dug thru the dam.  It refilled and I have never caught anything but small fish from it, mostly bream.

The lower pond is just over an acre.  The first time I fished it I caught a 6.5 pound bass and regularly caught bass weighing 4 to 6 pounds from it until last Thanksgiving.  I caught a 3 pounder that weekend and about a month later I saw an otter eating a big bass.  I set traps and finally ran the otter off after about three months and after finding many bass remains it had eaten.

For the past year I have been able to catch a few small bass, and sometimes I see some swimming, but I have not caught anything over 3 pounds in a year no matter what I tried and no matter what time of year.

Last spring I noticed some unusual looking fish in the shallows of the upper pond.  They looked like little carp and I guessed they might be shiners.  This summer when I would throw out catfish food something in that pond would hit it hard on top, leaving a big splash.  That did not happen in the lower pond and the fished looked like big shiners.

Today I took a light rod and tied on a #8 hook.  I put a pinch of bread on the hook and threw it out were the fish had been fed.  Sure enough, I started catching 7 to 10 inch long shiners!  They fought hard and were fun to catch.  I put about 8 in a minnow bucket and took them to the lower pond.

I hooked up one of the big minnows on a 5/0 hook and suspended it under a big cork. After throwing it out near the dam and tying the rod to a tree, I hooked another big shiner to a big weedless hook and started casting it and reeling it in slowly.  I got about 20 feet from the first rod when there was a big splash of a bass jumping trying to throw the bait.

By the time I got to the rod I felt the fish fighting hard but it tangled me up in a float and broke my line.  I put my jon boat in the water and retied that outfit after retrieving the cork.  While slowly dragging the two shiners behind the boat, one of the corks disappeared.

I let the fish tighten up the line and set the hook. A six pounder jumped and fought hard to the boat.  I lipped the fish and unhooked it - the fish was very colorful with distinct markings and looked very healthy.

 A little later a huge fish hit one of the dying shiners on the top of the water - the one the first fish had knocked off.  Then i got a bite on the same rod again and landed a five pound bass.  That was three bass over five pounds in less than two hours!

It drives me crazy that those big bass have been in the pond all year and I have not been able to get them to hit.  At least I know they are there - and now I know how to catch them!

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