Fished A New Pond on Friday

[Jim Gronaw]

Hey guys and gals, I got to fish yet another new pond this past Friday. Actually the pond was drained about 6 years ago and dug out and restocked with bass, gills, channel cats and some hybrid stripers. I had fished the same pond back in the early 1990's and it was fabulous at that time, producing several 7 to 9 pound bass and my personal best bluegill of 11 3/4 inches.

My buddy Loren and I fished it and he got some nice eater-sized channel cats to 20 inches and we caught bass to 18 inches and a lot of small to medium gills on worms.

Cats looked to be in good shape, gills of various year classes looked healthy, but the bass were in bad shape with flat, skinny bellies and large heads for their overall skeletal length. The larger bass would follow in a hooked bluegill and make a lazy swipe or two at it then give up as if they were too tired to capture a meal! Seemed to be plenty of forage in the form of smaller gills for the bass to feed on.

I wonder why the bass were in such scrawny shape? Bruce...any ideas?