Alright Bass guru's.... solve this one:

Three weeks ago, the big bass bite was on. I scored a couple over 5#s, which ain't bad, but fishing buddies of mine were using jig'n pigs on a different pond and caught fish over 8#s and one in the 10# class. In the last two weeks, the big fish seemed to have just shut off.

Fish still aren't on the beds. We are catching tons of males, I think I caught in the neighborhood of 30 in about 4 hours this afternoon, biggest fish was around 2.5#s, typical pre-spawn male, healthy and aggressive. Caught all my fish either on spinnerbaits or crankbaits.

Now, a few weeks ago the weather was pretty warm and the water temp started coming up. Today it was a bit cooler, the nights are getting down into the 40s again (I'm in central/eastern VA and fishing farm ponds). Water temp is still just a touch under 60, and we had a bit of a weather system moving through today, cloudy and windy and cooler. The big fish bite seems to have shut down, but the smaller fish are still feeding. Today the weather had them a bit sluggish and some of the hits were sluggish... the trailer hook saves the day again.

I'm thinking perhaps the colder weather has their metabolism slowed down a bit? Maybe they are movnig to and from shallow to deep water to feed and I just missed the cycle/window of opportunity? I couldn't buy a bite on a worm today..... not even a pick up on the black worm or the senko. Usually they are good for at least a fish or two, and usually are the most consistant producers of big fish for me.

What do you think is going on?

Any time a weather system moves through you can expect for the fishing to change. I would say that once the weather weather clears up for you then you will be back in business. Sounds like you have got yourself some nice farm ponds though. Just because fishing was slow yesterday doesn't mean it won't heat up today. Bass are funny little critters and can sometimes do exactly opposite of what they are "suppose" to do.

Weather systems definately do that. What puzzled me was that it wasn't just yesterday, it seems like the fishing had lulled off for the last two weeks. One day, or even three or four days I can understand.

It was almost blowing a gale this morning. I'm not exactly worried about whitecaps on a 40 acre farm pond, but its not fun fishing out of a gnee-noe by yourself with wind like that. The air temp is up a bit though, I think its in the 60s now.

Its laid down a bit now at 10 am, I'm going to get a bite and a shower and head out again. I won't catch anything sitting on my duff looking out the window.

I hear ya..It's been the most difficult year I've ever fished..
Tomorrow is supposed to improve drastically .one day before the full moon..
Good luck and catch a monster

If you are seeing the male bass up in the shallows, I'd suggest moving 2 cast lengths off the bank and fishing. The females are cruising around the flats, just waiting to "ripen". Fish the first drop off on the flats, and hold on.

Atleast your seeing fish already. The weather patterns in Indiana have been so fluctuant that the bass haven't done anything!

Well today flat out sucked. Fished from 1pm until 8pm. I think I caught 7 bass total, one right at 15" and the rest between 12 and 14. Couldn't keep the damn pickerel off my spinner baits. I actually had one hit a terminator so hard that it drove the trailer hook through the front corner of its eye, up into its brain and killed it instantly. Fish locked up bent sideways like a boomerang and never even twitched. I unhooked him, put him back in the water, and he even floated sideways and bent at a 50 degree angle or so.... strange.

The crappie bit, the pickerel bit, I even caught a ring perch on a 3/8oz spinner bait (thats optimism.... or gluttonany). I tried drop shot rigs with senkos, jig'n pigs, crankbaits, big spinner baits, small spinnerbaits, blue, black, charteuse and white, willow blades shallow, indiana blades deep, topwater baits... I jigged jigs, swam jigs, let jigs sit, pitched jigs, flipped jigs, said the hell with jigs.... I jerked jerk baits, swam swim baits, stuck stick baits, blew my who-honker and beat my flu-fussler....and finally decided that The Grinch had given up on Christmas and stolen the spawn instead.

Josh and anyone else who has an opinion: The pond I am fishing doesn't have a lot of depth change. Its about 1000-1200 yards long and averages about 250 yards wide. Once you get away from the dam, where the water is around 10-15 feet deep, the creek channel averages about 6-8 feet deep and is not much wider than a sidewalk. The flats around it vary from 4-6 feet deep. The bank is a very gradual slope and attains on average 2-3 feet of depth when going 30 yards out, then slinks down easily to the middle of the old creek channel.

The upper half of the pond is a consistant 5-6 feet deep, very slowly inching its way up to about 2 feet deep. The main fish holding features are old stumps and a few blow downs. In the summer time, the whole pond is lined with lily pads, and these pads have started to grow and in some places have emerged already. You can see them spreading out about a foot under the surface.

The bottom is generally covered in a thick grass that varies from almost millfoil to almost green used motor oil consistancy. It makes working anything on the bottom, or anything with treble hooks a royal pain in the hindparts.

I have google earth on my computer, and I'm going to see if I can't find a map or satelite image of the place and point out a few key features so I can get some opinions from y'all. Most of my bass fishing is done in the post spawn (late April at the earliest, usually not til May, then through the summer). I've done a bit of fishing on the beds, but I haven't really noticed any beds just yet.

I'll put something together and post it up.

I'm going to appologise in advance, because this may well get confusing.

This is a view of the pond from the Northwest. The dam is on the right hand side. I used some of the google earth tools, and the distance from the dam to the upper tip of the pond is 1142 yards (how about that for range doping on my part!). The distance from the points to the coves as the pond winds from the dam up varies from about 90 to 185 yards.... in effect you cannot cast to both banks at once, not really even close.

Here is the confusing part. Note all the multi-colored dots.... these are places of note.

LEGEND:

LIGHT BLUE DOTS - These are the places that I caught bass (roughly and to the best of my recollection) on Tuesday 3-18, the date of the original post.

YELLOW DOTS - Are the spots were I caught bass today.

PURPLE DOTS - Based on my notes, these are roughly the places I have caught citation size fish (8 pounds+ or 22"+ in length) over the last seven years.

RED DOT - Is the EXACT spot where on May 28, 2004 I hooked and landed a bass that was weighed on a certified scale at 11 pounds 4 ounces (thats well POST spawn too), before a witness (who is a State Fisheries department official) and subsquently released unharmed.

Here is what I call the main drag of the pond. Historically, this has been the most productive bit of the place. This represents a 300 yard stretch. I left the red dot in place as a point of reference to the map in my post with the big picture.

The lime green line is roughly where the old creek channel is/was. Its little more than a curb on a rain gutter now and unless you look for it, you would never notice it.

The fushcia (I'm running out of colors here) dots and corresponding text boxes are depth soundings in feet.

You gotta love google earth.... zooming in by the pond dam you can see the dock, the outflow pipe, the pile of boats at the launch, and even individual stumps and lily pads in the pond. I can see the submerged log where the big bass I caught memorial day (red dot) was laying in ambush.

If any of you experienced spawn/prespawn pros can lend me any insight or techniques that might help me out. I'd greatly appreciate it.