Thanks for that information about the larger bait
Last time up there i tried using large fat heads but the small bass basically killed them, they couldn't swallow the fat heads but they tried and the trying scared the fatheads to death. Also caught some real small bluegill and tried them as bait but no luck.
I'll give your suggestion on the larger lures a try.

The pond is thick now with small bass and blue gill so I've been catching them with small red worms and taking some to nearby ponds etc. You can catch 25 fish with the same worm before it shreds away. Afraid there are still way too many. I should have put 12 bass in the pond rather than the 25 as it seems the 25 have created 25,000 small bass and now for some reason after 5 years the blue gill population also has increased dramatically.

Over 10 inches of rain this month whereas last summer probably had 8inches in total.