Jon B's Airbnb Bass series scaled up this week. Where the series usually rents a single cabin and fishes whatever water the listing comes with, this episode walked into an entire East Texas property - the Red Magnolia Ranch - and made the bass pond out the back the reason for the trip.
"Is renting an Airbnb for just one day to fish a private pond worth the money? Today we find out," he opens. "Welcome to the Red Magnolia. We are out here in East Texas right now and we're going to explore this beautiful landscape, this parcel of land that not only has cattle, blue bonnets, but also of course hopefully some big largemouth bass."
The pond itself is small, shallow and clear. "This is the reason why we've came out here to this part of Texas and rent an Airbnb," Jon says. "I grew up fishing farm ponds in Illinois, and this looks a lot like what I grew up fishing, but this time we're in Texas. So the fishing theory should be a little bit bigger." The listing's gallery had included a photograph of what he calls 'a voluptuous' bass that had been pulled out of the pond previously - the kind of single-frame teaser that drives most Airbnb Bass selections.
The day opened with a sight-cast. A two-pounder was visible from the bank, then a second bass was sprinting through bluegill on the surface. Jon tied on a 'soon-to-be-released' Googan Gizzy Glide and threw it across the school. The water erupted - just not the way he expected. "Oh my gosh, dude. He's clapping bluegill," he calls. "Watch this. This is going to be on site. Is this going to be this easy? No way, dude. This fish is so jacked up chasing bluegill right now. The bluegill chasing the bluegill. That's how good of a bait this is that the bluegill think it's their friend."
The bass refused the glide, but the second cast got a bite that almost took Jon's face off. "Almost killed myself. That was the weirdest series of bites I've ever seen in my entire life. That must be a fish that's guarding fry cuz he was spearing at it. He wasn't even really trying to eat it. I have never almost taken off my own face with a frog. That would have been a great sequence of events, though."
A bite landed shortly after - a one-pounder that opened the scoreboard. "Fish on. Yes. Yes. Yes. Nice. Our first Airbnb Bass. We can officially say that this pond has got some decent fishing," he says as it comes in. "Nice little probably one pounder. Nothing massive. We're seeing some bigger ones for sure. And of course, like I said in the listing, there was a picture of a pretty decent four or five pounder. So, I'm hoping to stumble upon one of those. But it's a nice stepping stone."
The water clarity and pressure forced a slowdown. Jon switched off the glide and onto a finesse rig with a 5-inch Lunker Log - a tactic he kept defending on camera as the right call for a small, clear, pressured private pond. "As much as I think that they probably would eat the gizzy glide right now, the water is probably not right for it," he said. "It's very clear and this is a tiny pond. So, even though it's a private pond, I'm sure it still gets pressured."
The finesse rotation produced bass through the afternoon, but the most quietly-loved sequence in the video was a bluegill session on an ultralight built out of his daughter Mila's tackle box. "My daughter Mila left her tackle box in my truck," he said. "In here are all the necessary tools for blue gigging fishing. So, I promise I'll put it back where I found it, but thank you in advance. We've got bobbers, grubs, jigs, you name it."
The bluegill produced a fish Jon described as 'a hammer' on the ultralight and a couple of fish that he and his cameraman Asher Davis spent a minute trying to ID. "Asher and I were trying to figure out what exactly what type of bluegill these are," he said. "If they're just regular bluegill or if some of them are hybrids. This one looks a little bit more like a regular gill, but he kind of looks like a redear or two. Let me know in the comments what type of bluegill you think that is."
The scoring at the end of the episode - Jon's standing format - put the Airbnb itself at 9 out of 10. "This place is beyond cozy. This would be a great place to bring my daughters, my wife, or maybe if you've got daughters or sons or family, this would be an awesome place to bring a small family." The pond came in at 8.5. "If you want endless bluegill, this is the place for you. If you want to catch some nice, healthy bass, this is the place for you. Although, the one thing I will say is it is a little shallow and it is a little small. That being said, it's an awesome pond. We caught the heck out of them."
The broader pitch from Jon was that small clear private ponds reward finesse, that an entire ranch rental can be justified by a single bass photograph in the listing, and that an ultralight rod with a six-year-old's tackle box can carry the second half of an episode when the bass shut off. "This would be a great place to bring your kids, the youngans, to just experience fishing," he said. "Like, no better place to introduce someone into fishing because the fish are there. They're willing to bite."
*Source: Jon B., 'I Rented An Entire Ranch Just To Fish This Private Pond!,' published 18 May 2026.*