It was a typical July day in Broken Bow, Nebraska with the suns rays beating down relentlessly. I spent the day inside thinking about my favorite farm pond and the big bass that call it home. They would stay deep in this blazing heat, but come twilight, they would be in full feeding mode, cruising the shallows. I’d be waiting, but more on that later.

Farm ponds are one of the most overlooked fishing opportunities in this great state of Nebraska. If managed correctly they can present one of the best opportunities for anglers to catch large bass, along with an assortment of other game fish. In this article, I will focus on the methods of catching large bass out of small farm ponds.

Finding a farm pond near you shouldn’t take long, but finding one with decent fish in it, may be a completely different story. When I look for a pond that is holding fish, I look for a few key things. All of these factors contribute to whether you have a potential honey hole or not.

• One would be size, I’ve had good luck on small ponds, but there’s a point where the body of water is so small that it’s obviously not going to be productive.
• Second would be the water clarity. Many ponds are not suitable for fish to survive in, especially ponds that cattle frequent regularly. When I inspect a pond I like to see at least one to two feet of good water clarity.
  
• Thirdly, I look for what kind of structure is abundant in this pond and also the depth of the pond. A good candidate is usually eight feet or deeper at its deepest, if you get much shallower than 8 feet, you could possibly run into problems with fish kills and such.

Once you have located a good farm pond and made contact with the landowner, then it’s onto the best part, the fishing! A huge advantage to fishing farm ponds is the fact that a large boat is usually not needed. If you’re like me and can only afford a float tube or a little Jon boat, or just like to fish from shore, farm ponds make this very easy and effective. Most ponds have a large amount of vegetation, whether reeds along the bank or moss beds away from shore. These are places that I key on when fishing a pond for the first time. After covering these areas, I will then move around and explore the pond and usually turn up some good fish holding cover that was previously overlooked. One of the things I love about fishing farm ponds is that you can almost always see the cover you’re casting too, this provides you with the opportunity to see the fish hit your lure, which is always fun.

The lures and presentations you use on farm ponds can be quite different than what you would normally use on a large body of water. Some methods used include: Texas rigging worms, sight fishing with crank baits and with spinner baits, and also casting lures up against the shoreline and the cover that’s along it. All of these methods are very effective on ponds, and have yielded the best results for me, but don’t be afraid to experiment – you never know what is going to make that bass decide to strike.

Farm ponds offer great opportunities to expand your fishing knowledge and also give you a great new style of fishing. Just remember to never underestimate the quality of a fishery because of its size. When all the pieces of the puzzle fit just right together – right pond, right lure, right presentation, and right night – the results will make memories that last a life time. So it was for me on that hot July night just a year back. When the bass hit my double bladed buzzbait. There wasn’t any question about it. Fish on. After a few heart pounding moments, she was finally boated.