Over the years i’ve fished for all species of bass from Maine to Florida and from Virginia to California.
I have fished tournaments on man made reservoirs like Table Rock Lake and Bull Shoals in Missouri, or guided on giant lakes like Okeechobee, Champlain or Ontario or cut my competitive bass fishing teeth on the Potomac river and the other Chesapeake Bay rivers, and let me tell you they are all fantastic fisheries with world class trophy bass potential.
However, being born and raised in Delaware I discovered bass fishing with my father and brother, fishing small ponds and lakes.
Most of these ponds are 15 to 100 acres with just a handful around two to three hundred acres.
Needless to say these are a far cry from the sprawling bodies of water I would later cast for cash on and probably did little to prepare me for what I would encounter when I got there right?.
Hold on, not so fast! In fact everything I know today got its roots from those seeds planted on those tiny little puddles back in Delaware.
How to pattern bass, different techniques, how weather both positively and adversely affects bass, and most importantly the endless hours of practice on casting, working baits, and hooking, playing and landing big bass.
For me though. the best part of these little mini-lakes is the ability to learn how to and catch truly giant bass.
I still fish these ponds for that same reason today. There are GIANT bass in these little ponds!
I’ve recently been fishing even smaller ponds and even I have been shocked by the results.
On average 1 in every 3 little tiny retention ponds you see on the side of the road holds bass, and big ones at that.
I’ve caught bass as big as 8lbs in Delaware from a pond less than one acre.
One of the best parts about them is they get little to no fishing pressure so the bass slam almost anything that you throw in their vicinity.
Most of them have huge numbers of small fish as well so they make excellent teaching lakes for kids or beginners, or just a fun place to go catch a lot of bass in a short time period.
So the next time you drive by that puddle on the side of the highway or in the shopping center down the street, or the one you see everyday on your way to work, take your rod and reel and camera and give it a try.
You just may find yourself having to answer the question. You caught that where?
Submitted by Steve v.
