Private Pond Pounding Gills!

Today I had a short leash with the wife so I only had about 4 hours to kill. I haven’t hit any farm ponds yet this season and Mitchell Meyers was talking to me about a private pond that his uncle lived on. Sounded good to me. We met up at a Handimart and I followed him out to the pond. We made our way out on the ice discussing what areas we should hit. We made our way to a couple of down trees that were in less than 10’ of water. I fired up the Jiffy and popped a few holes. The ice was 3 to 6 inches on the pond. I was surprised at the 3” and the water that came up the holes. We didn’t mark but one fish and it didn’t seem interested. We moved out deeper. We found a tree on the bottom in deeper water and marked fish. Mitchell got into a few pretty quickly. He had the hot hole to start. The gills came through his hole, rapid fire for the first 5 minutes. I didn’t even have a fish below by the time he had 4 or 5 9 – 10” fish on the ice. I would get my chance though. I started getting a few. It was nice to feel a tanker on the other end of the line. Most of the gills I’ve caught this season haven’t reached the 8” mark. These were true brutes.
We wore our welcome out pretty fast. The fish stopped coming through so we pulled up and moved. We found another tree and more red marks waiting. We started to pull more big gills up. It was a good time for sure. We exhausted these fish and decided to try for some crappie. We moved out into the basin that reached an impressive 32’. We found some fish close to the bottom but they were gone by the time we got down to them. After drilling about 25 more holes I decided to go back to the gills since I didn’t have a lot of time. Mitchell stuck with it for a good while. He managed to get one fat 9” crappie. I started hitting the gills really well. A pack of little 12 to 14” bass moved in for some extra fun. It was a blast and a great way to spend the morning close to home. Thanks again Mitchell, and thanks for the awesome jigs. I’ll be giving them a try this week I’m sure. Now, if you could make some Tungsten jigs……..

Great stuff Travis. Those private ponds are truly a resource to be appreciated, and not always as hard to access as people would think. Those that are hunters are well-familiar with knocking on doors, and if you apply the same mentality to fishing, it’s not that big a deal. Especially when you’re talking about fish the size of the ones you guys iced! Congrats again, and thanks for the pics, enjoyed them!

Joel

We don’t have all the lakes like Minn and Wis have. We have to be creative and approach fishing a bit different for some of the best waters in our state…..yep, welcome to Iowa.

Sorry but i have a hard time getting excited about catching fish on a private pond it’s like hunting on a game preserve, but if you don’t have as much public water to fish do what ya gotta do, that said it looked like ya had fun and after all thats the main thing

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Sorry but i have a hard time getting excited about catching fish on a private pond it’s like hunting on a game preserve, but if you don’t have as much public water to fish do what ya gotta do, that said it looked like ya had fun and after all thats the main thing

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To each their own I guess, If I had access to a private pond I would be all over it! I’m super jealous!

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Sorry but i have a hard time getting excited about catching fish on a private pond it’s like hunting on a game preserve, but if you don’t have as much public water to fish do what ya gotta do, that said it looked like ya had fun and after all thats the main thing

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yeah and all those pond fish sit there waiting for hook with out bait to come down and eagerly attack the hook, oh yeah….all land owners put tresspassers welcome signs around their ponds and love to see anyone icefish their ponds. You may want to rethink how you just came across with a comment like that. I drive by 100’s of ponds and wonder how do I get permission to get out there. There are ponds where I have seen state record bass. There is just as much adventure heading to a private pond vs a public body of water.

There should be a state record in a pond, just like all the booners inside a high fence

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Sorry but i have a hard time getting excited about catching fish on a private pond it’s like hunting on a game preserve

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Are ya kidding me??? We’re talking about catching, selective harvest… not killing a paid for buck in a fence!!!

Mark

My point is it’s not open to the public as a whole, do they need a license? Someone owns those fish and the water they swim in,if they have limited water to then fish them and have fun like i said, but don’t throw a through a state record in front me that a limited number of people had a chance to catch in there bathtub, i’m done comparing thousands to hundreds,

so exactly how is hunting on a game farm like fishing on a farm pond? You seem to be fairly close to Iowa, heck you may even have “ponds” in your neck of the woods, you even sound like an educated individual.Just trying to connect the dots here.

As a person who works hard to access better fishing, whether public or private, I see it a little differently than most. 90% of the land in SE MN where I turkey hunt is private, but I’d certainly never assume that killing a record turkey, many turkeys, or easily killing a turkey is a foregone conclusion. While I’ll agree that gaining access to such a body of water increases the likelihood of experiencing good fishing, so does finding a difficult-to-get-to chunk of public land, a lake that nobody wants to work hard enough to get to, etc.

Landowner relationships and knocking on doors is just like busting your hump to hit a lake up north 5 miles from any road. “Private” lakes in my experience rarely if ever means it’s somebody’s personal test pond, with zero access and monster fish around every corner. What it typically means, is that there are several landowners surrounding which partner to ensure good fishing via limited, selective harvest of the resource. Sole ownership of ponds is less common than you think, and even where that’s the case, it simply means it’s in an owners best interest to keep the resource in good condition. Where ponds have more open access via relatives, neighbors, and whoever politely asks (which is the case more often than you’d think), fishing is usually on-par with your avg. public lake down the road. Sometimes worse, as they’re typically smaller and can’t absorb pressure well.

Not to mention, fish are still fish, and environmental factors like spawning conditions, low oxygen levels, and the like are always in play.

To everyone that’s never fished a private pond, there’s alot of work and effort that goes into it, with no guarantees to boot. Great fishing can be found, but I assure you it’s not as simple as knowing someone and going down there to become a fishing-hero! Especially in parts of the country where natural lakes are less common, these may constitute the bulk of fishing opportunities for most people.

Joel

Nicely done. Public, private, small water or large… Those are some jumbos!

Very will said. I fished alot of private pond with my grandpa when I was a kid and my friends laught at me when I told them were we caught the fish.like grandpa said (it’s not like you are fishing in a bucket) we worked for them. no differnt then hunting on game farm ya you pay for the birds but if you don’t have a good dog well you may not get them all up and you got to hit them too. it good training for young dog to make them a better dog down the road just saying!

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My point is it’s not open to the public as a whole, do they need a license? Someone owns those fish and the water they swim in,if they have limited water to then fish them and have fun like i said, but don’t throw a through a state record in front me that a limited number of people had a chance to catch in there bathtub, i’m done comparing thousands to hundreds,

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I think you are envisioning a pond with feeders and aerators and lots of stocking, and even if you weren’t…who cares. The point that a lot of the guys are making is that it is a lot of work. My bass club buddies did a segment on their show on some private ponds down in IL. As you can see they had to work hard, and these are nothing more than a glorified cattle watering hole. Check this video out at show me where the feeders are or the intensely managed population…

http://northrhoadesoutdoors.com/early-ice-giant-gills-4/

I think someone is just a little jealous that’s all

Joef, that got me half way out the door! Very cool vid and we experience the exact thing, sometimes we don’t catch a thing till the third or 4th pond we get on. You do need to form a relationship with the land owners, sometimes finding the land owners is a chore, but with a plat map it sometimes pays off.

Yeah that is some pretty neat footage! I think those small ponds are subject to fish kill in tough winters from what i understand which can make it tough to find a consistent bite from year to year.

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Sorry but i have a hard time getting excited about catching fish on a private pond

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