Fishing Among Spawning Largemouths at Colonial Park Ponds

Bass on the beds! I prefer to leave the bucks alone to protect the brood and go after the big, spent females that hang in slightly deeper water (still shallow oriented this time of year). But today?

I was fishing outside the beds when a kid walked up and five minutes later lipped a 2 1/2-pound or better bass--apparently a large male because he said he targeted it on a bed.

I cast a Chompers, Strike King Senko-type, Rapala #9 floater, and Baby Torpedo to a few bass on beds at a distance, including a good-size buck, and got some interest, but no takes.

The largest male bass I've witnessed, my son caught while it guarded a bed in Ghost Lake--17 1/4 inches.

So I beat my expectation today. It wasn't a 95-degree summer afternoon, and I fished the two Colonial Park ponds in Franklin Township, Somerset County. (How many Franklin Townships in NJ? I drove through another in Warren County on Sunday.) The upper pond is pretty good-size, maybe eight acres. Looked fairly sizable anyhow.