East-Central IA Ponds

Rugbystar and I met this afternoon on a medium sized pond where we had permission to fish.

I came to the show late, but the day was all Rugby’s!

The pond we fished was used as a borrow pit and had some depth too it, but not much structure of any kind. Suspended fish (likely crappies) would come and go at about 10′ while bluegills hugged the bottom in 17 FOW. After dark,I got bit by something quite large that made my little reel sing and ended-up breaking my rod tip.

Never did get to see it, but it hit on a suspended jig, leading me to believe it was a likely a nice slab or perhaps a bass.

I switched between an old standby tear drop (yellow w/silver back and red eyes, tipped with a waxy), a Genz worm and white demon. Action was pretty slow for me. Rugby managed to sort enough specks and ‘gills for a nice fish fry, so head to his house for supper tomorrow. He used a curved tear drop jig, with orange glow paint and silver speckles (yes, I plan to head to the sporting goods store tomorrow to get some to even the odds! ) We’ll have to take the camera next time to take some pictures; it was a nice mess of fat panfish for the fryer!

We left once the snow got started, around 7:30pm.

I have not been out nearly as much as some of the “regulars” and “staff”, but I am seeing a pattern in my efforts of better #s of fish and quality of fish in the more “out of the way” places. Curious to know how things are at the ‘Mac. We took a family drive yesterday down to Kalona to get some dry goods at the Amish grocery store; on the way back we swung by the main ramp and north arm of the lake. It looked like there were at least 18 shacks spread across that area, with a few small groupings on some of the more popular community brush piles.

Regards,

Joe

As Joe said, there were some nice fish to be had on that “Pond” somewhere in Eastern Iowa For a period from dark to 6:30pm the crappie went on a tear. They were popping in and out of the flasher at two main depths, 10 and 14 fow and I was in 18 fow. I was also able to coax some chubby bluegill off the bottom during that time between crappie visits. This body of water was very clear and devoid of structure so the fish were roaming. When they did come in range you had to jig aggressively, get them to follow the bait several feet then hold still. This worked nearly without fail. If you got a fish to rise up with the bait you got a bite. The fish definitely didn’t want the bait jigged in place once you caught their attention. I could see how someone would have went to that body of water, dropped a bait down the hole and got skunked. These fish really were in to aggressive jigging to get them on the scope or off the bottom with the gills then upward movement then deadstick and whammo. I caught between 35-40 fish and a wide range of sizes from 5 inch bluegill to a sumo plate shaped 13 inch Black Crappie. Kept a mixture of 15 gills and crappie which made a nice dinner last night and will make a few more nice meals in the next weeks.