Return of Monroe Hot Pond 12/22/2015

[djkimmel]

FireFighter Jeff said he wanted to take a shot at the Monroe Hot Pond and I was like... heck yeah, lets go tomorrow. We had very favorable winds and still no ice in Bolles Harbor so it was a piece of cake thanks to the boys from the December 13th get-together to find our way into the Hot Pond. We only had 1 other bass boat in there and a couple small boat anglers throughout the whole day yesterday (12/22/2015).

The fishing was not lights out like I thought it might be. There were still and uncounted number of shad, white bass and gar jumping and splashing all over the pace with packs of swooping gulls but the bass bite was pretty slow to start with and we didn't catch much at first not counting a swarm of dinks in the back end that would hit almost every cast...

We could catch lots of 'other' species with blade baits all over the pond when we threw them - I think we caught 8 1/2 species on them by the end of the day (1/2 because FF Jeff says we can't count the big gizzard shad that he snagged several times).

The bass fishing was slow until we hit "THE SPOT" Then it was lights out for a while as we hammered 3+ to almost 5 pound largemouth on cast after cast with our various crankbaits! We finally wore that spot out and things slowed down a little bit again but we could always go to the blade baits and whack something if we needed to. We found out there were a few snags in THE SPOT because once the bass bite finally petered out we started snagging like crazy. We each lost a number of hot baits I wish we hadn't lost but as the saying goes, if you aren't snagging once in awhile you aren't doing it right.

Overall, the day was amazing and fun. Smacking some quality bass in late December was my 2015 Christmas present I think - thanks FF Jeff! Here's our fishing day in 'pictorial' format.

FF Jeff started out the day with this almost 12 pound Sheephead on a crankbait


I started out my day a few minutes later with this whopper bass on a jerkbait. It wasn't a great jerkbait day though the tiny bass would eat it.


In the back of some kind of rock pile I popped this real largemouth bass on the Little N Bill Norman I like to throw around in there for bass and white bass.


FF Jeff gets his own quality bass by the outflow on a KVD 2.5 - a 3-11 largemouth.


We hit THE SPOT and my biggest from the day is a 4-14 caught on a parrot glitter Excalibur Shad crankbait I lost on THE SPOT a little later unfortunately.


FF Jeff landed the only keeper smallie of the day from THE SPOT. It was mixed in with a bunch of quality largemouth bass!


FF Jeff pops a bigger largemouth bass from THE SPOT!


Selfie doubles we caught on crankbaits from THE SPOT. We would hook a good one and go for the net in case it was another toad so we missed out on more chances to get more doubles because it was almost as quick as you could get  a cast into THE SPOT for a short time!


After THE SPOT I tried going after the meat-eating carp of the Hot Pond with a blade bait and landed, after an arm-tiring fight, this 17-11 common carp that tried to eat my blade bait in about 20 fow below the boat.


Here's a double of baby largemouth on the ole Little N Bill Norman. The little bass were all over this crankbait this day. I could catch them in the back end almost as fast as I tossed this little shiny dude out. I did catch some keepers on it last time and one over 4 yesterday. I ended up losing the crankbait on a snag again... @%@#%@!


FF Jeff had his shot at another big sheephead or possibly one of the man-eating carp of the Hot Pond but ended up only with a scale to show for it


FF Jeff 'giant' white bass on blade bait. We only caught a few nice white bass yesterday. None of the really big ones we caught on the 13th and we got into some ridiculously tiny ones too!


My 'giant' white bass on blade bait.


FF Jeff blade bait bluegill. I caught an almost respectable, and definitely aggressive bluegill too on the the blade bait. These were deep versions of the dock gills that were attacking my Pop'R last time.


On the blade baits we ended up catching:
common carp
sheepshead
walleye
quillback carpsucker
white bass
gizzard shad
bluegill
largemouth bass
crappie

Add the couple smallies FF Jeff caught and we had a pretty interesting day of 10 species of fish from one area. That's pretty good. Plus Jeff got bit off clean on a blade bait so we're thinking just maybe there's a big ole gator swimming around in there too!

Anyone want to go?

[21XDC]

Great pics and story. I wish I could have gone. We catch quite a few buffalo fish there as well...  The blade bait is tough to beat when the bite is on...

[djkimmel]

Thanks. We didn't see any buffalo but we did have a 4 point spike buck running down the edge of the Hot Pond after watching a doe eat grass for a while along the shore!

I haven't caught a buffalo in years so that can go on my todo list of fish to catch and a spot maybe I can catch one in the future. We did get a bunch of white bass and sheepshead about every time we picked the blade up but we only caught 2 or 3 small largemouth bass on them. Most of our bass came on shallow or deep diving crankbaits.

[21XDC]

How was the water clarity compared to your first time there?

[Firefighter Jeff]

   Nice job on the fishing report Dan.  Thanks for posting it. Definitely fun for sure. Glad the weather cooperated and I had someone to go with being my first time. Seeing those deer and all the eagles just added to the enjoyment. Company was pretty good also.      Thanks Mike for the info you provided.  Nice talking with you. Oh, and visibility was only about a foot or so.

[Jay-MadWags]

Looks like you guys had a great time.
Merry Chirstmas!  Must have been nice to bass fish in Michigan in December.

[djkimmel]

Yes! It was my Christmas present!

Water clarity was about the same as on the 13th.