Joe Budd Pond 7/6/13

[Poopong McPlop]

Today was the grand opening of Joe budd pond in the Joe Budd WMA in Midway. I've never been, but I heard many good things about the place. If youve never been its quite an experience. Its a FWC Special FMA, thats stocked with tons of channel cats, all native sunfish species, LMB and Wipers aka sunshine bass (white/striped bass hybrid) and its only open 12 days of the year to the public. The water is nearly spring clear and its as deep as 30ft. We arrived around 7:30am and the place was packed. The lake is 20 acres, and there were at least 50 people and 8 boats fishing when we arrived. Our boats brought the total to 10. By noon there was 100+ people and almost 20 boats fishing. I got the morning started with a 14" LMB bottom bumping the breakline on a point but eventually tried to catch wipers schooling on the surface with jigs with no luck. They would not touch an artificial lure but readily smashed chicken livers floated on the surface. It took me a couple of hours to grasp all the nuances of JBP. I employed clearwater tactics and immediately caught some very nice shellcrackers bottom mopping 12-15ft. A moving bait I found was a must when on the bottom or you would have a channel cat on you in an instant. In the afternoon the rains came for an hour and the place cleared out which allowed us to move on to the open water feeders. It took us an hour to figure out the bluegills by the feeders, but after that we got into a nice rhythm and began to pull hand sized gills consistently. The keys to our success were to suspend the bait about 3-5ft off the bottom on a nearly neutral buoyanted cork using size 8 short shank shiner hooks, and to completely hide the hook. We rotated baits constantly to keep the bite going for over 2 hrs. We rotated between red worms, pinks, crickets and chicken liver. At the end of he day we caught about 200+ channel cats, 8 LMB, 80 blue gill, 10 shell crackers, and 4 sunshine bass. We kept 18 channels cats, 50 big bream, and the 4 sunshine bass. If you havent checked Joe Budd pond out, youre missing out. Its an excellent place to waste a day catching tons of fish.

[FUTCHCAIRO]

NEVER HEARD OF THIS POND, WHERE IS IT LOCATED AND HOW DOES ONE GET THERE, I AM IN SOUTH GA.
PA
SEMPER FI

[tallykenj]

Sounds like a nice (but crowded) time.

[Poopong McPlop]

Its crowded but theres tons and tons of fish. Everybody was catching all day. If you look up the pond its near high bluff landing on Talquin's north shore. Its northwest of the iron curtain. You need to punch in joe budd aquatic center in your gps.

[Redbelly]

Yall must be having lots of fish frys!

[kenfly]

Yall must be having lots of fish frys!

Think they need to have a bbf member fish fry.

[fireant21]

They do summer youth camps for kids there. My daughters have been and have had a blast. They teach them knots and rigging, boating skills, how to clean fish, and of course fishing.

[kom06]

What are the boat size and motor limitations on the pond? Is there a publication for this? It doesn't state it in the WMA Brochure. Thanks!

[Poopong McPlop]

JBP is electric only. We'll be out there saturday. Check the FWC link for rules and special regulations. It's at the bottom.

http://myfwc.com/fishing/freshwater/reg ... northwest/