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App National Forest pond

Posted: May 29th, 2017, 11:15 am
by Red Dawg
After about a year trying and many failed attempts, I finally found a way to reach (legally) a small pond well off the beaten path in the National Forest. First 6 cast yielded 5 bass. Only thing is they were all 10"-12". I figured there had to be some bigger fish I'd just have to find them. I've been back twice in the last 2 weeks with the same results. Just wondering if the Forestry Service possibly stocked the pond and that's as big as they've grown. Anybody know a way to find out what ponds are maintained? Again this pond is not easily accessed or probably known by many.

Re: App National Forest pond

Posted: May 29th, 2017, 11:21 am
by Jumptrout51
Most likely there are too many bass in this pond causing retarded growth.

Re: App National Forest pond

Posted: May 29th, 2017, 11:42 am
by fishdux
Jumptrout51 wrote:Most likely there are too many bass in this pond causing retarded growth.
100% This.

Re: App National Forest pond

Posted: May 29th, 2017, 8:54 pm
by J Holden
To my knowledge, none of the ponds except for possibly Trout Pond have ever been stocked. Most of the National Forest ponds are seasonal and dry up periodically, it's pretty rare for most of them to hold water for more than 5 years at most. Then the whole genetic pool dies when they dry up and the whole natural restock cycle starts again. Under ideal conditions you might see a growth rate of a pound a year for LMB, and those ponds are not really ideal for a variety of reasons. One main one being there are too many sunfish.

So for the short answer the fish are small because 1) the ponds dry up fairly regularly 2) they're not managed resulting in a large population of smaller fish and 3) Lots of sunfish and other species like pickerel and mudfish compete with bass for limited forage.

Re: App National Forest pond

Posted: May 30th, 2017, 1:52 pm
by bbb
We fished Moore Lake about 25 years ago and caught some bass. As far as I can remember it's never went dry. At one time you could drive to the waters edge on the West side, but they blocked that off 20 years ago. We use to launch on the south side of the lake off a small dirt road. Just enough room between the cypress trees for the boat trailer.

Went in there one late January morning around 1992 and there were 100's of ringnecks. Only time I ever saw more than a dozen woodducks.

Image

Re: App National Forest pond

Posted: December 21st, 2017, 1:58 am
by BloodyChamp
Keep trying. There's probably some warriors in there. I've never seen an overfilled pond that wasn't either a catfish pond or a bream pond (and as soon as we put bass in it...bam it all evened out). Otters, birds, etc make it nearly impossible to have that problem. The only reason that bream pond of ours got cockeyed was because it sat for a couple years with just bream in it after we dug it.

Re: App National Forest pond

Posted: February 12th, 2018, 2:03 pm
by Jose Gaspar
I stocked a rarely fished pond off of Natural Bridge Road years ago after going out with a biologist to shock up some fish. Even though this pond was rarely and I mean rarely ever fished, most of the fish shocked up, especially the bass, were on the small side.

The biologist told me the type of pond it was (I don't remember the name) and said I'd need to stock it because there would be an abundance of really small bass and just a few whoppers in there.

I imagine that's the type of pond you were fishing. Lots of dinks and a few trophies.

Re: App National Forest pond

Posted: February 12th, 2018, 5:25 pm
by BloodyChamp
Jose Gaspar wrote:I stocked a rarely fished pond off of Natural Bridge Road years ago after going out with a biologist to shock up some fish. Even though this pond was rarely and I mean rarely ever fished, most of the fish shocked up, especially the bass, were on the small side.

The biologist told me the type of pond it was (I don't remember the name) and said I'd need to stock it because there would be an abundance of really small bass and just a few whoppers in there.

I imagine that's the type of pond you were fishing. Lots of dinks and a few trophies.
Some of the ponds out that way absolutely AMAZING lol but they're locked down big time.

Re: App National Forest pond

Posted: March 12th, 2018, 3:19 pm
by BlindHog
I thought any pond within the Apalach Nat Forest would be open to fishing. Are some closed? Or just over pressured when easily accessed?

bbb - what are the odds of a man finding a woodie roost pond that was remote enough not to be hammered regularly? I have always thought of trying that.
?

Re: App National Forest pond

Posted: March 12th, 2018, 4:17 pm
by procraftwes
BlindHog wrote:I thought any pond within the Apalach Nat Forest would be open to fishing. Are some closed? Or just over pressured when easily accessed?

bbb - what are the odds of a man finding a woodie roost pond that was remote enough not to be hammered regularly? I have always thought of trying that.
?
Access can be difficult or at least require a walk.

Even worse is when trails/roads get closed and then you really really have to walk.

Most of the lakes don't have flowing water and dry up and shrink. Typically they wont dry up all the way but food sources shrink.

Lake Moore and some of the other lakes are deeper and wont dry up so it stands to reason there's some whoopers in there.

Find deep lakes = find big fish.

Re: App National Forest pond

Posted: March 12th, 2018, 11:57 pm
by bbb
BlindHog wrote:
bbb - what are the odds of a man finding a woodie roost pond that was remote enough not to be hammered regularly? I have always thought of trying that.
?
There are a lot of places that look woodie. Years ago I was walking out there squirrel hunting and jumped 50 woodies out of a small wet bottom. They are there if you are willing to work.

Re: App National Forest pond

Posted: March 14th, 2018, 8:07 am
by One Keeper
Some of the biggest copperhead bream in our area lives in Moore lake. Years ago we would catch em trolling beetle spins around the edges. I also jumped one of the biggest bass I've ever hooked in that lake. Prolly 14 pounds or so. It's also full of pickerel/pike whatever they are called. :roll: