I do a lot of pond fishing and during the winter it is one of my primary outdoors pursuits. There are big fish to be caught during this period and I have developed a system for catching quality fish.

This will be a quick tip to get you started and one that could begin a revolution in your pond fishing: go light!

Too many anglers go to ponds chunking big spinners, huge, heavy jigs and magnum sized crankbaits. And while I am a believer that big lures/baits equals big fish, there are exceptions and there are also ways to use large lures without a heavy handed approach.

My approach involves fishing almost totally with soft plastics and using jigs no heavier than 1/4-oz. In fact, most of the time I go totally weightless and rig it on light fluorocarbon line. My main pond setup now is a Fenwick Elitetech Spinning Reel with a Pflueger reel and 8-pound Stren flurocast line.

I’ll have more later but leave you with a bass typical of the quality I catch in ponds on a very consistent basis using this approach. Tune in over the next couple of weeks for a bunch of blogs on this subject.

Chester Moore