Ponds are easy to fish and you can learn them quickly.  The better ponds will have some deeper water, which prevents them from having winter fish kills or at least from having winter fish kills as often as they would have if the water was shallower.

To fish ponds, there are some things you definitely should learn to help you have more success when searching for ponds to fish.

What are the Main Species of Fish Here?

In most ponds, it’s going to be largemouth bass, but in some parts of the country, it could be trout, there could be some northern pike in there, it could be catfish or just a ton of panfish.  In most ponds, you will usually have a combination of bass and panfish or catfish and panfish.  Some ponds will just have carp and catfish with nothing else.  You can learn a pond fairly quickly by spending a few hours fishing and observing and you can rule out unproductive ponds as you search for better ponds.

How to Learn the Ponds Faster

Fish the spring and during the peak hours.

There are some quick ways to see if a pond is worth fishing long run.  Get out there in the spring because the fishing is usually best in the spring as water temperatures warm up and fish will often be in the shallows.  This is when you can see if bass are spawning near the shorelines or carp or both.  You can also fish these ponds during the peak time periods.  Whether it’s largemouth bass, pike, carp, catfish or trout, there will almost always be a more aggressive bite at low light hours, so go during the peak time periods when you are searching out a new pond.

Bass Target the Shorelines to Feed

Because most ponds don’t have a ton of cover in them for bait fish to hide, you will usually see a lot of the smaller fish use the shallows to hide from predator fish.  This works fairly well, but because these smaller fish stay so shallow, bass have learned to move into these areas to grab a quick meal.  Don’t rule out the shallows along the shorelines because these areas usually provide some awesome fishing.  Early morning and in the evening, work the shorelines with topwater lures, jigs or soft plastics and you will usually catch quite a few bass.

Catfish Like the Deeper Holes

On ponds that have some nice catfish, you almost never see them until you catch them.  However, on some ponds, people feed the fish and then you can often see catfish expose themselves as they come in and feed.  For the most part though, you’re going to find more catfish by finding the deeper holes in the pond.

Most of the Better Ponds are Catch and Release or Hard to Get To

Finding a good pond is tough to do because a lot of people find out a pond has good fishing and then most of the bigger fish get eaten by people.  If you can find a catch and release pond or some of these ponds that are hard to get to, you will usually find some better fishing.  There are other variables involved, but if you can take away one of the biggest variables that hurts ponds, that helps.  That variable is people eating the bigger fish.

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