Your "honeyhole"

By Ian

  Every bass angler has a honeyhole. It's your secret spot where you catch all your big bass.  They can be an inlet to a lake, a deep hole where the fish are stacked up, or an unprepared pond. No one else knows about it, and you want it to stay that way.And when you bring your friends along to fish, you have them blindfolded. Some anglers even have more than one honeyhole. They can be ponds, pools in creeks, or parts of an reservoir. Every bass angler should have a few honey holes they can go fishing at.  

​  However, honeyholes are often hard to find. The chances of finding one at a public lake that gets pressured hard, for example, are almost close to none. A lake that you can find listed on a county or tour website probably is overpressure, and all the honey holes there have been depleted. I like to related to private ponds; I simply ask the landowner if I can have permission to fish there, and maybe do some chores to ensure I can come again. Private ponds are almost never pressured, and hold big, eager bass.

Above: Private or farm ponds make some of the best honeyholes.

  Many relatively unknown reservoirs may also have some honey holes. Reservoirs are usually located in the country, so the water can remain pure, so they usually don't get much traffic, unless the reservoir is a famous fishing or recreational area (Toledo Bend, Smith Mountain Lake). Speed boats, swimmers, and of course fishermen all scare away or pressure the bass. Even still, such reservoirs are often too large to be completely fished, and if you fish around, you may find one or two relatively unpressured spots. 

​  There are a lot of unfished or less pressured creeks and rivers out there. If smallies are your thing, then many of them hold unpressured fish. No one simply fishes them. If you want to find some unprepared spots, simply hike further down than most people. Larger rivers, such as the Mississippi, although very pressured, may have some backwater bends that people often overlook. Make sure to thorough explore weedy or swampy areas; people and boats often don't enter such areas. There was an instance last year, when I was fishing the Potomac, when I was fishing a pressured area by a beach, where people where fishing and swimming. I didn't get a single bite. But just thirty or so feet away was this inlet to a creek. It was surrounded by bush, but when I got through all the brambles, I found a large pool. The fishing there and outside was literally night and day; I was getting a fish a minute, whereas just thirty feet away I wasn't getting a single bite. 

Tight lines,

​-Ian