Bass Fishing in Community ponds
by P.J. Pahygiannis

This past July I decided to try fishing Plastic ZOOM lizards in the community pond that has heavy vegetation and some bass. I was fishing it with erratic movements under the vegetation and let it pause and a bass inhaled it.

I was using Fluorocarbon with a Green pumpkin lizard and used a small bb splits shot. I have also used other colored lizards and when reeling this lizard, I have had bass strike it when I'm using dark colored Lizards. In the part of Maryland I live in there are dark colored salamanders, therefore that's why the bass eat the darker colored plastic lizards instead of light colored ones.

This is the pond I was fishing had a lot of thick vegetation around the edges, but in particular there was a small tree that was hanging over the vegetation at the side of the pond, which bass used as cover on hot July days.

The tail on the lizard, which had an erratic action when reeled medium speed and casted to one side of the pond and retrieved back to the other you will often received strikes. Make sure your drag and reel is working well, because if something happens to your reel when reeling in a bass and something happens to your drag, you won't be able to reel the bass in.

I have caught some small bass on a small blue and black jig by hopping it off the bottom where bluegills are bedding. I've also had some explosive strikes on a top water toad just outside of weed beds, but I've had bass blow up on it and miss it because the hooks are off to the side. I've seen my friends catch bass on small mini-swim baits, as well as small, light in-line spinners in creeks.

Because most of the Ponds I fish have murky water, I use a black and blue Jig. To find out what type of structure is under the water, I throw deep diving crank bait, and usually can feel branches and logs, and by seeing what comes up with the Crank bait, I can tell if there is grass suck as duckweed on the bottom. Because, in most Stillwater ponds there is a lot of vegetation a good jig to use would be a Jig-a-Man jigs live Rubber Grass jig, You can purchase them at http://www.jigamanjigs.com/7422.html.