I had the chance to get out on some of my favorite farm ponds over Christmas with some friends and family. We had a blast catching some giant Crappies, nice bass and big gills!
The hot Crappie baits were blue/white or pink/white #6 Shrimpos from Custom Jigs and Spins . If we put on live bait we were bombarded with a bunch of stunted largemouth. The plastic tails on the Shrimpos did the trick for the Crappies.
I also got a chance to try out my new Marcum LX-5. Over the last few years I was content with my Vexilar Fl-8 which I believe is a functional, beginner level unit. When the new Humminbird Ice 55 came out I had to get one. Well, that unit is on its way back the factory for reasons that James described here in his Ice 55 review. I don’t know what took me so long to finally get the LX-5 but I’m very glad I finally did. It performs great. I loved the super fine line and the moveable zoom. No problem seeing small jigs in deeper water with wide or narrow beam. Overall just an awesome flasher!
This property had a larger pond as well that we knew had some big largemouth and medium sized white crappies in it. We caught a few 11-12″ crappies for the frying pan and a few nice largemouth.
Thanks for fishing with me guys! I had a great weekend.
Here’s my dad with our mess of big gills from pond #3. This pond gets very little fishing pressure and we believe taking 40 or so big gills out each year has helped sustain the population of big fish. We catch very few gills under 9 inches here! 5-8 fow water near brush with little cecils/waxies and mini merts/waxies was the ticket.
Andy, congrats on the great catch! Very nice looking slabs. Congrats, too, on the new LX-5! Nice addition to any ice fishing arsenal. Still waiting on taxes so I can pick up one. Again, CONGRATS!!
Great report andy!! Welcome to marcum!
Well done Andy,
Looks like you guys had some great action !!!
How deep do your farm ponds usually get ?
Are all farm pond created equal ?
Looks like fun was had with some hawg slabs thrown in.
That pile of gills got my heart racing a bit…..great report Andy!
Nice slabs there Andy. Looking forward to getting out on the ice with you again soon.
Happy New Years to all.
GO HAWKS!!!!!
those are some magnum slabs Andy, I love farm ponds!!
Dave,
The pond with the big Crappies was about 1.5 acre with max depth of 12 fow.
The pond with the big bass and average white crappies was about 3 acres and 18 fow.
The gill pond is about 2 acres with max depth of 15 fow.
they all have fairly good depth and the most important thing is that a large portion of each of these ponds is at or near that max depth.
Great report! Nice mess of fish!
Those are some dandy gills…Great read