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With spring in full swing, it is a great time to visit a pond and walk its banks to fish. Whether on your own property or that of an acquaintance, in a park or at some other public location, you probably have access to some sort of pond that provides fishing opportunities, with no boat required.

Whether pond fishing outings are for bass, bluegill, crappie or whatever kind of fish bites, little things about your overall approach can rob productivity. We’ve identified five common mistakes that you should avoid in order to maximize pond fishing success.

1 – Skipping Homework

Pulling up satellite imagery of a location on your phone or computer and zooming in to scout key areas from home has gotten so easy. Don’t skip this step.

You’ll see things from “overhead” that you would not recognize from the bank. Look at changes in the shoreline makeup, inlets and their sources, the shapes and orientation of points, the creek channel location below the pond dam and other general structural distinctions. Water color dependent, a satellite view might also reveal how far downed trees extend, underwater cover like brush and stumps, the size of flats, the location of channel edges and more.

Time invested in studying a pond can help you identify potential hotspots, pick lures that fit the pond’s offerings and devise a solid gameplan. It also helps you better understand what you are looking at once you are standing on the pond bank and can provide continued value onsite.

2 – Approaching Too Quickly

If you consider the perspective of fishing from a boat, the casts that instill confidence and often produce strikes are the ones that land right next to the bank or a piece of shoreline cover. When you walk all the way to the pond’s edge before casting you often spook fish before getting the chance to even show them a lure.

If the setting allows you to do so, stop well short of the bank when you arrive and when you move to a different spot and cast from there. Then approach slowly and move with a bit of stealth. If you’re working along a bank, make a few casts parallel to the bank or slightly angled out before taking steps. This serves a double function of working zones before you walk too close and keeping you’ve bait in the strike zone through more of each retrieve.

Standing right on the edge and casting as far as you can, straight out, sends your offering away from most fish, much of the time.

3 – Overlooking the Dam

If a man-made pond’s dam is accessible to walk, failing to at least try that area leaves something on the table. A pond dam provides a hard edge near deep water and usually crosses the old creek channel. Riprap, often in place for stability, adds cover for gamefish and forage species.

Many dams also have a spillway or some other type of water-control structure that reveals the location of the channel and provides additional hard cover for the fish. If the pond level is sufficiently high for any water to be spilling, current and eddies create ambush points for gamefish, making the fish more active and their locations more predictable. Work the structure itself and the area around it, and if you get bit away from the structure, repeat that cast. You might have found the channel edge.

4 – Getting Weighed Down

 

Mobility may be the single largest key to consistent pond fishing success. Anglers who are willing to walk to reach less readily accessed spots and to cover more water tend to be rewarded with better success. And sometimes that means crawling over stuff and under stuff or wading across a ditch or through a marshy spot.

All that becomes more difficult and less appealing if you carry a bunch of gear, especially stuff you’d have to keep gathering and picking up and then putting down again. Although you don’t want to lack items you legitimately need, carrying less tackle, ideally in a hands-free manner, allows for much greater mobility, which often translates to finding better spots and catching more fish.

I have a few stowable tackle boxes that stay packed for different types of pond outings, and I put the ones I expect to need for any given outings in a small backpack. If I can get away with it, I’ll only carry one rod, so I don’t have to keep setting a second one down. Even if I plan to fish an area with a baitcaster for bass and an ultralight for panfish, I’ll usually opt to fish that area twice, walking back to my car for a gear switch in between.

5 – Missing Critical Clues

Because walking the bank puts you close to fish habitat, important clues about the fish’s behavior abound and sometimes are at your feet. Baitfish you see in the water, crawfish claws on rocks, aquatic insects hatching and terrestrial insects in the grass or on logs are just some examples of clues about the fish’s menu. Also, look closely for things like bank slope changes, mixes of vegetation types in the water, bass or panfish beds, fish feeding on the surface and water color changes. Ponds are often mostly uniform, and small-seeming distinctions sometimes make a substantial difference for holding fish.

Other clues apply to virtually all types of fishing, not just pond outings, but they are too vital to not mention. Anytime you catch fish or get a bite, take note of the depth, how you were working your lure and lure’s position relative to structure, cover, shade and more. Even fish that follow your bait but don’t commit reveal locations, and often a lure color change or alteration of your retrieve will turn followers into fish that bite and get caught!

5 Great Pond Fishing Lures

Rebel Crickhopper – Terrestrial insects sometimes find themselves afloat near pond banks, and predator fish are quick to make them into meals. A Crickhopper cast near wood cover or parallel to the bank and worked on the surface with rod twitches is tough for fish to resist.

BOOYAH Pond Magic Spinnerbait – The small size of a Pond Magic Spinnerbait makes it look like an easy meal and provides multi-species appeal, and unique spinnerbait colors are designed to match common pond fish forge. It is a great tool for covering water and finding active fish.

Heddon Spin’n Image – The new Spin’n Image provides great versatility for working from pond banks because it can be reeled steadily to cover water and call in fish or worked with rod sweeps and pauses to slow the presentation to coax fish from specific hiding places. Either way, remain ready for BIG strikes!

Bobby Garland Itty Bit Mayfly – Pond fish eat a lot of aquatic insects, and the tiny size and buggy profile of an Itty Bit Mayfly make it irresistible to many types of fish. Match it with an Itty Bits jighead and either add a split shot to provide enough casting weight or rig it beneath a float for slow presentations along weed edges and near trees, stumps, docks or other cover.

Rebel LIVEflex Shore Shiner – Minnows provide critical forage around the edges of ponds, and the Rebel Shore Shiner offers a slender minnow profile that suggests a simple meal and tight tail action. Fish it as pre-rigged on a KEG Head Jig and vary speeds and your rod angle to work a range of depths.