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Megabucks Bassin Johnson Pond Is your bass club looking for a new tournament idea? If it is, then Kop-Flex Bassmasters president, Bill Lynne, has an idea you may be interested in. He calls it Megabucks Bassin Johnson Pond. As you may recall from past issues of that bassin bible, Bassmaster Magazine, the Megabucks format is a novel way of structuring a fishing contest. Instead of big motoring off to fish where they will, contestants are assigned where and when they are permitted to fish. To accomplish this, the body of water is divided into roughly equal segments with each boat competing on each segment for an equal length of time. Draw decides where and when each contestant fishes. As you will see from the accompanying map, Johnson Pond is admirably suited for this purpose. Located in the city of Salisbury, Wicomico County, Maryland, Johnson Pond has been a bass fishing Mecca since the Bay Bridge was built. At 104 acres, its more like a small lake than a pond. A freshwater fishing license is required. Most important, it has the primary requirement for a bass tournament site a respectable bass population. Fact is its more than respectable. Ill talk more about that later. Johnson Pond is shallow, but not as shallow as your depth finder may indicate. While the meter may show 2 to 3 feet, actually the bottom may be quite deeper. Poke a flippin stick down to feel bottom and it will get wet past the reel in lots of places. Why the disparity? The depth finder may be reading a false bottom created by thick pond slime above a bottom muck composed of loose sediments. The launch ramp is located on the perimeter of a large, bowl-shaped area. The DNR says there are 11-foot depths there. Bass attracting cover are the dam itself, a sandy beach area, remains of a pier, several blow downs, lily pads, sunken Christmas trees, and the predominant cover in Johnson Pond milfoil waterweed. Up lake, Hospital Point divides the pond. To the right is East Fork, a long shallow prong featuring an immense lily pad field on the hospital side, and several small coves accented by piers on the opposite shore. North Fork lies to the left of Hospital Point. Bass cover there includes an abandoned swimming area, lily pad rafts, underwater stumps, old blow downs, and, if the hospital hasnt removed it, an enormous fallen tree that came crashing down at lakeside in 2002. At Kop-Flex Bassmasters tournament held there in the same year, Bill Lynne won with a limit of largemouth. There are no smallmouth in the lake. Weight was 8.63 pounds. The bite was steady for average size tournament bass, but the big ones were not biting that day. Out of 13 participants, 12 caught bass. But no bass were weighed in. You see the Kop-Flex event was a paper tournament. Page 27 of the Maryland Freshwater Sportfishing Guide (the little book you should receive when you buy a freshwater license) lists Johnson Pond as a Special bass Management Area. The regulations are aimed at producing big bass. To do this, the DNR permits licensed anglers to have 5 bass in possession. But heres the catch: Those bass must be smaller than 11 inches. If you possess a larger bass, it must be 15 inches or larger. And in that event you may possess only one. What theyre trying to do is encourage anglers to keep smaller bass while retaining most of the larger bass in the pond. How are they doing? Quite well. Rick Schaefer, DNRs Eastern Regional Manager, says, Bass condition, as measured by relative weight is outstanding. The numbers support Schaefer: In 1988, the proportional stock density (PSD) was 35. By 2000, the PSD had risen to 84. Schaefer says, As you can see, this population is composed of mostly large fish. Since bass club rules dont allow bass less than 12 inches, the DNR regulations forced Kop-Flex Bassmaster to adopt a paper tournament format. Trust. A paper bass tournament depends on trust. Each contestant trusts the other contestants will report honestly the bass he catches. If a contestant has a partner in the boat (at the Kop-Flex event, all but one boater did), the partner verifies the others catches. Each bass is assigned a weight according to its length. For instance, a 12-inch bass is assigned a weight of 1 pound. A 14-1/2 inch bass-2 pounds and so forth. As the bass are caught, theyre marked down on a paper tournament score sheet. But each angler may take credit for no more than 5 bass. If he catches more than 5 he must cull. That is, he must drop the smaller bass from the score sheet. The sheets are turned in to the weigh-master at the end of the event, the results tallied and the angler with the heaviest paper-weight is declared winner. All bass are released as they are caught. No bass are brought to weighing scales. Everybodys happy. Bass anglers accustomed to fishing smaller bodies of water should score well at Johnson Pond because they will know the significance of downsizing their offerings. Like to throw ½ ounce spinnerbaits? Use ¼ ounce, or even 1/8 ounce blade baits instead. Chuck and wind small buzz baits, not large ones. Do you prefer a 6 or 7-inch plastic worms? Try a 4-inch Yamamoto Senko instead. A shallow running crankbait like Manns Baby One Minus is a killer. In most sections of the pond, ever-present (even in winter!) pond slime precludes the use of jigs and diving lures. Johnson Pond never has been electric only. Outboard motors are O.K. But dont speed nor operate your boat with reckless abandon. Bob Bagwell, a long since retired DNR man assigned to Wicomico County, advised a young angler back in the 1970s theres a speed limit of 10 mph on the pond. But I cant say the limit is enforced. Ive seen people water skiing in summertime. And you cant get up on skis at 10 mph. From Marylands western shore, take Route 50 across the Bay Bridge and keep on truckin to Salisbury, Maryland. Its roughly 125 miles and 2-1/2 to 3 hours from Baltimore. Once inside city limits, look for the National Guard Armory on the left. Once past the armory, turn left at the big intersection of West Isabella Street, left again on Lake Street, then right on Rose Street. From Delaware, truck on down Route 13 south to Salisbury. Turn right on West Isabella Street. Turn right on Lake Street, then right on Rose Street. Plan to get there early. Parking at Johnsons is limited to about a dozen boat/trailer combos. If you think Bill Lynnes Megabucks Bassin concept is worth trying, either at Johnson Pond, another body of water, simply divide the water into as many sections as you have boats. Allow each boat to fish an hour in each section. If you have time left over, as Kop-Flex Bassmasters did, permit anglers to fish anywhere for the remaining time. That way you may get to see where the leaders had their best luck. 12.5 = 1.13 13 = 1.25 13.5 = 1.50 14 = 1.75 14.5 = 2.00 15 = 2.25 15.5 = 2.50 16 = 2.75 16.5 = 3.00 17 = 3.25 17.5 = 3.63 18 = 4.00 18.5 = 4.38 19 = 4.75 19.5 = 5.13 20 = 5.63 20.5 = 6.13 21 = 6.63 21.5 = 7.19 22 = 7.69 22.5 = 8.31 23 = 8.88  Nancy R. Fulton writes in Wicomico County History, by George H. Corddry (Peninsula Press) - a wonderful work detailing early times on the lower Eastern Shore- the North Prong of Wicomico River was dammed around 1750 near the corner of Isabella and Division Streets by a man named Bailey. Below the dam were Wicomico Falls where it is said water playing on stones produced a pleasing musical effect. Pedestrians used a narrow footbridge to cross the dam, but horses and wagons had to ford the river below. Large sawmills occupied the west shore. A gristmill and planing mill stood on the east. The Big Storm of 1933 cut the inlet at Ocean City. It also destroyed the dam at Isabella Street and other dams in Salisbury. Later in the 1930s, the Works Progress Administration (WPA), created during the Great Depression by Franklin Roosevelt, rebuilt the Isabella Street dam further upstream. This is the current concrete and steel structure impounding Johnson Pond. The earliest map I could find showed Johnson Pond as H. Humphreys Pond. Note: ©2003 This article is reprinted by potomacbass.com with permission of the author. Commercial use is prohibited. |