Pond dams hold fish. It’s that simple. If you lack specific insights about a particular pond, its dam often is a good place to begin looking for fish. That becomes more so than ever during winter because the deepest water in a pond is normally near its dam, and the fish often find a bit of thermal refuge in the deeper water.
Many ponds’ dams can be fished from a boat or by foot, and each offers advantages. The boating approach often affords easier presentations to more spots because of vegetation that obstructs casts or retrieves from the dam. Also, if you have a depth finder, you can find drop-offs and look for fish from a boat. On foot, though, you can work slowly and methodically without need to control a boat, and you’ll actually find better casting angles for some spots. In addition, if you look off the other side of a dam, often you can get a very clear picture of where the creek channel runs and of other contours that will help fish the water near the dam more effectively.
Although many pond dams appear pretty uniform, certain areas along dams tend to hold more fish. Unless a pond is very old and its channels are silted and indistinguishable, the breaks on both sides of the main creek channel rank among the best spots along a dam. Another extremely productive area is the vicinity of any type of spillway structure. That’s especially true if water is flowing into the structure and creating currents and eddies. Even without flow, though, a hard concrete structure in fairly deep water almost always has some fish around it. – See more at: http://www.rebellures.com/journal/how-to-fish-a-pond-dam/