4th Of July Topwater Slaughter At Ponkapoag
Went to Ponkapoag with my dad early this morning and had a pretty successful day. After we carried the gigantic green mass that is our Coleman Crawdad down to the water, we trolled over to the right side of the pond. After throwing some baits, we figured out that topwaters were the go-to. My dad started out with a jumbo perch on a zoom horny toad and I landed my first fish, an LMB on a jitterbug. I switched to a Rebel Buzz'n Frog next, which proved to be the game changer of the morning. I caught 6 fish on the buzzbait, five pickerel and a nice LMB. I switched to other lures throughout the morning, but kept going back to the Buzz'n Frog and it produced. Overall I got seven fish in total and my dad got two. All of the fish except for on were caught on topwater. It proved to be a great trip at a great pond.
Well I usually stick to a buzzbait for topwater, a Rebel Buzz'n Frog to be exact. At the same time, my dad, who is usually fishing with me in the boat, will be using a Ribbit-style soft frog or a hollow body. I get more luck on the buzzbait usually, but he gets hits, as well. Having established that, the best times for topwater are in the morning, especially early, and late in the day/into the night. We fish topwaters early in the morning at ponkapoag, never later than 11 in the am. With the topwaters we stick to the shallow water and almost always look for pads, overhanging tree, and other cover, then cast into/around those points. I get a lot of topwater hits this way. A lot of fish hang out on the "right" side looking out from the dock near the shoreline pads and there's also a lot at the big area with a small density of pads on the left. Once they stop hitting the topwaters, I usually move out to the middle of the pond to fish deep, although I've had less fish here. For this area I'd use a worm rigged texas or wacky, a squarebill, or even a spoon. Only use spinnerbaits in choppy water, as the fish won't hit it in clear water. So overall, get up early, try more topwater options than a hollow body frog, including a buzzbait, and know what time of day to fish certain areas. Hope I helped!
Where exactly do u fish the topwater frogs, I've tried cranks, wacky rig worms, spinners, etc everywhere, and I get little luck at Ponki. Can u go into detail about the how u fish at Ponkapoag?