Need advice! Fishing from bank, NO luck!
Okay guys, I need some help before I go crazy. I’m in central N.C., (Selma) fishing a pretty large size pond. I’ve been fishing this pond the last 3 weeks a couple hours a day. It’s been 50-85, fairly nice weather with a couple colder days. I can’t even get a bite to save my life. I’ve fished all of my life, but recently I’m staring to take it more seriously and have been trying to learn more in depth techniques, so I’m not a complete rookie but still have a lot of learning to do. There is a lot of minnows on the bank, there’s a culvert from another pond coming in, its shaded, there’s grass and branches in the water, it’s pretty clear water, and to about 10-15 feet out it’s covered by lily pad then it’s all open, all things bass love from what I’ve learned. I’ve seen several medium sized bass by the bank, plenty of activity, but they don’t seem interested in anything that I throw in. I’ve used jig’s, crank bait, Texas rig, drop shot, top water frog, literally everything in my tackle box. I’ve fished here sunny, cloudy, cold, warm, before and after it rained. I’m using a abu Garcia bait caster on a 7” medium heavy rod 12lb fluorocarbon line. What am I doing wrong??? (My technique has improved a lot the last couple weeks, I’ve been hitting up YouTube and BassU trying to learn as much as possible, but even after tweaking my retrieving and learning new rigs and set ups, that didn’t seem to help either). Any help or tips would be GREATLY appreciated!!!
Try a Ned rig for a few trips and look where the wind is blowing. Put it next to structure and just gently and slowly hop it back to you. Don't cast far out cause you are likely just wasting time. I was where you were just a few months the ago and now me and my four kids caught over 55 fish in about 4 hours doing what I just told you. Ned rig is your friend.
I’ll deff try that! That was next on my list to get better at! Thanks!!
BTW, what I mean by, "look where the wind is blowing" is that the fish will often be on the bank that the wind is blowing against. We were fishing a local mini-lake which is in-town so you can imagine the number of people that fish it. And there were at least 10 other anglers other than myself and my 4 children fishing when we showed up. There was a decent breeze coming across the water blowing against the NW bank, but everyone was gathered on the NE bank - and they weren't catching much. So we headed over to the NE bank and started working that area, with our Ned rigs and we cleaned up. In fact, we ended up pulling out our lipless crankbait and proceeded for the next 15 minutes to catch a fish every cast - which is fun. This happened in the beginning of March this year.
This of course doesn't happen every time, but every little thing you do that stacks things in your favor can tip you into starting to catch fish.
The only thing I will add, from my pond fishing experience is that if the pond has a defined channel of any sort, I try to fish that (it's the only time I'm not really casting near the bank when fishing a pond for bass). I would suggest trying 2 extremes on retrieve as well. I would burn a spinnerbait (So the blade makes a wake) / lipless crankbait around anything, as fast as you can fish it and keep it under the water, if that doesn't work, "soak" something like the ned rig or drop shot. Either make them bite it by not giving them time to think about it, or give them a natural-looking bait and give them plenty of time to think about it. I've found private ponds are more forgiving to bold colors, when I was young, farm ponds were the only place I could get bites on firetail ribbon worms.
Any progress?
All great advice from fishingfather and Jason. One of the things you might be up against in this pond is the spawn. In your part of the country right now the spawn is probably still happening. Your powerbaits tend to be less effective when the bass are in this mode. I like the ned rig like fishingfather suggested and drop shot. Other tools that are my choices this time of year are the floating worm and of course a weightless senko. I usually use a five-inch senko, but in ponds, during the spawn, I drop to 4" or even 3" and I always fish it weightless during the spawn. Good luck and keep us posted. They should start eating the power baits soon.
