Selective Harvest Pond Fishing Part 3

This week I took a couple trips to the pond to do some more harvesting. With it getting late in the year I wanted to hurry up and harvest the 5 or 6 largemouth bass that I had planned to harvest before fishing slowed down to much. My plan is to harvest 150-200 5-7 inch bluegill and 5-6 8-12 inch largemouth bass on the year. This is in hopes to increase the growth rate of the largemouth. More is explained in Part 1. Up to this point I had only harvested 87 bluegill.

On the first day the water temperature was 60 degrees. I started out using a weightless 6 inch purple worm. Fishing was slow, I only caught two largemouth on my first lap around the pond, both of which were not in the 8-12 inch range I was looking for. So I switched it up and tried a small spoon in hopes that they wanted something moving quicker than a plastic worm. After a few casts, I got my spoon stuck on some floating leaves. I managed to pop the spoon free and immediately got a bite on top water. I reeled in yet another bass that wasn't in my target range. After the top water bite I quickly switched to a popper. I made another lap around the pond with the popper catching two more largemouth, one of which I kept. On the day I caught 5 largemouth and kept 1.

On the second day the water temperature had dropped one degrees down to 59. This time I started out throwing a larger 7 inch Berkley Power Bait worm in black. I didn't have any immediate results so I switched it up to a small in-line spinnerbait. In years past a spinnerbait has been one of my favorite early spring and mid fall baits at my pond (generally when the water temperature is in the 50's). I don't know what it is about spinnerbaits but the bass really like something shiny and fast during those periods of the year. I quickly found success with the spinnerbait, catching several in my keeper size range. The action continued to be good until dark and I ended up catching 8 largemouth, 5 of which I kept. So in total I kept 6 largemouth meeting my goal. Here's the five from the second day.

Five 8-12 inch harvested Largemouth Bass