How to fish Shallow Grass Flats?

[lwh008]

My home lake has a lot of bank beaters, and there is really not much deep water structure. I'm wanting to give punching and flippin' cypress trees a break and start fishing the huge grass flats that the lake has.

Any tips on how to attack  giant grass flats that run anywhere from 2ft-4ft?

For example,

1. What to look for? any subtleties?

2. Bait choice? (square bill, trap, chatter bait, fluke)....

3. When to move?

4. Cast in the grass or parallel it?

5. Work top of grass? middle? or bottom? ( how to attack each zone?)

These are just a few that i can think of, but any tips that y'all have would be great.

Thanks guys.

[Airman4754]

Lipless, jig rig, T-rig, C-rig, Keitechs with a weighted hook, wake baits, frogs, spooks, 68 weedless Hudds, swim jigs, and so on. 

3-5' rule when fishing it. A bass usually won't move more than 5' in shallow vegetation so pick it all apart. 

Work the edges first then get into the heart of the beast.

[flyingmonkie]

The water is 2-4' deep, or the grass is 2-4' tall?  How much of the water column does the grass occupy?

Not near as experienced with this as many on here, but I'd be doing at least two things:

1) Ticking/rippping the top of the grass with moving baits like a spinnerbait, swimbait, chatterbait, lipless crank
2) Looking for holes in the grass to pitch a jig or soft plastic.   Pretty killer spot for a wacky rig, I'd think.

[lwh008]

33 minutes ago, flyingmonkie said:

The water is 2-4' deep, or the grass is 2-4' tall?  How much of the water column does the grass occupy?

Not near as experienced with this as many on here, but I'd be doing at least two things:

1) Ticking/rippping the top of the grass with moving baits like a spinnerbait, swimbait, chatterbait, lipless crank
2) Looking for holes in the grass to pitch a jig or soft plastic.   Pretty killer spot for a wacky rig, I'd think.

The water depth ranges from 2-4 feet and the grass grows anywhere from 6 inches to all the way to the top of the water column (depending on time of year).

[Bankbeater]

If there is a light wind I usually just let the boat drift across the water.  If the wind is heavy I will drop anchor and move a little at a time.  I don't worry about the boat scaring the bass because IMO the grass helps hide me from the fish.

I will throw a spinner bait, lipless crankbait, or a shallow running crankbait depending on how far down the grass is from the surface.  If the grass is patchy then I'll try a fluke or a senko and drop the bait into the holes between the grass.  You can also punch through the grass with a big heavy jig to get to the bottom, but use a trailer that won't wrap around the grass.

If the grass is up on the surface you can't beat a hollow frog to coax the bass out of the grass.

 

[Catt]

#1

I look for irregularities in bottom contours 

If present I'll target any other cover like brush, stumps, laydowns, or standing timber 

I look for areas where two types of vegetation meet

#2

Solid body frogs or ribbon tail worms buzzed across the surface

Pop-R or Zara Spook

Swim jigs

Jig-n-Craw & T-rig

#3 After I've covered the entir area & water column 

#4 Both including the inside grass line 

#5 See #1-4

[roadwarrior]

[Deleted account]

I usually use 2 major strategies when fishing a grass flat. one is to cover water using the wind or trolling motor with a search bait like a swimjig, spinnerbait, square bill or paddle tail. The other is to hit specific targets like grass edges, depressions, and other boundaries. If I can identify a creek channel, or other contour no matter how slight, I'll spend some effort there. The lures used on the latter, in addition to the ones already mentioned, are t-rig plastics or jigs. As the water warms a buzzbait, popper, Sammy, or other topwaters can be really good at times. As always, I let the fish tell me what to do. A grass flat can fish quite differently from day to day, and sometimes hour to hour, so it pays to stay flexible.

[BassinLou]

Another bait you may want to consider besides the ones mentioned above are Gambler Big EZ's or Ez swimmers, or bitter vibes swim baits. We see these situations alot in our lakes in FL, and these particular baits do very well in that type of vegetation and depth. 

[Ski]

Here in Fl. lakes are almost all shallow water slop.

I would encourage you to use the following baits based on what I have just read about your lake.

 

1. Weightless or 1/16 pegged lead, 5 " stick bait watermelon red flake, 16 lb test or heavier Fluro, 4/0 EWG Gammy Hook.

2. Swimming worm (CUT-R) rigged Texas, 1/8 pegged lead, 3/0 worm hook, Fluro.

3. Zoom Fluke, Texas rigged, 4/0 EWG, 1/16 pegged lead. Mono

4. Swimming Frog, Braid.

5. Hollow body Frog, Braid

6. 6" Z-Mann swim bait 5/0 weighted EWG hook.

7. Spinner Bait, Chartreuse and white, Willow Blades,(Bass Pro Shop Pro series. with trailer hook)

8. Swim Jig with matching color trailer.(Hack Attack)

9. Havoc pit boss, Black- Blue, Braid 1 1/4 tungsten weight , Pegged( For flipping and pitching the heavy slop)

10. Texas rig, 1/8 lead , ribbon tail, Red Shad color, 4/0 EWG Gammy Hook.

                These techniques should help your catch rate improve. Drifting across the lake will help you cover water and determine where the fish are holding. Light wind is always a + as the fish do not get that good of a look @ your moving baits. Remember to fish edges of the slop or where two different types of aquatic vegetation meet.

R/ Chris

 

[scaleface]

If the grass is matted on the surface I usually use a heavy weightless worm .If its under the surface lots of lures can be used . Buzzbaits and spinnerbaits are good bets .

[FloridaBasser1]

I'd recommend swim jigs, and soft body swim baits. rat l traps should do good in the thinner stuff, but I have had good luck with top water frogs ON OVER CAST DAYS.

[K_Mac]

I have caught some of my better fish fishing a chatterbait over grass, occasionally clipping and ripping through the grass. If the grass is all the way to the surface other tactics are better. A weightless wacky Senko in openings in the grass is always worth a try. Good luck.

[Scarborough817]

chatterbaits and swimjigs are the best around grass for me. i find it hard to beat slow rolling a chatterbait over the top of the grass and occasionally popping it a bit by twitching your rod tip. 

[ww2farmer]

Both the north and south end of my home lake are large grass flats. This is how I pick them apart

 I like to start on the deep edge of the flat, and in a straight line with an object on the bank, work shallower, fan casting a reaction bait around the boat. If I make contact, I kick a marker over board and work that area over a little before moving. If I make it all the way to the bank I work the bank for a little ways, and then turn right around and this time head from the shallow end to the deep end 30-yards away from where I came in on the deep to shallow run. I keep doing this  until I find out what's going on. Sometimes they are grouped up along the deep edge and I don't have to roam the flat looking for them, sometimes they are on the bank, and sometimes they are scattered all over the flat. I never know from day to day what they are doing until I get there and start working. It's a pretty featurless flat too, a lone rock here, a stick there, a small dip or two, a subtle change in bottom hardness, etc......I have a few waypoints saved on my GPS where I regularly catch fish on these flats, but sometimes , they are not on any of them, and I have to go into search mode.

 

[heavyduty]

Mann's baby minus 1

[bigturtle]

I like ripping squarebills and lipless out of grass. Other than that, I usually rely of topwaters or 10" ribbontail

["hamma"]

if the water is 2 to 4' deep then i imagining that the grass has surfaced.  where its thickest its most likely shallow, where its thinned out a bit then its most likely deeper. i use several lures for the exposed grass.

1) a nickle plated johnsons weedless spoon with a white 3 inch grub trailer

2) a hollow bodied frog

3) a 1/4 oz jig and pig (black and blue) with a rattle

4) a weightless white 4" slugo texposed

i fish these all as you would a frog, with the frog and slugo being the "slow" baits, jig and pig a bit faster and the spoon whatever retreive speed it takes to keep it on the surface. Personally i like the jig best, when a fish strikes and misses i let it drop in the hole for a few jigs.the slugo and spoon also double for open water lures  or should i say thinnest weeds.

as for submerged weedbeds  i like a big double bladed willowleaf, or a big single colorado bladed white spinnerbaits. a silver colored rattle trap, a white or silver double bladed buzzbait,  and probably my favorite being a manns baby stretch 1 minus in a color that matches the prevelant baitfish in that lake. i have recently added a 1/8 oz weedless jighead with a kvd caffiene swimbait, again prevelant baitfish colored

 search for any irregularity, albeit a laydown, holes in the weedbed, lilypads mixed in the grass, points of the weeds edge sticking out into deeper water, rocks,docks, stumps, anything that differs from the grass

the spinnerbaits i will "bulge" the surface, rattletraps and swimbait tick the top of the weeds, the buzzbait i bend the wire so the blades just barely tick other. the 1 minus i vary the  retrieve greatly until they tell me what they want

 spinnerbaits and buzzbaits get a white manns spinnerbait trailer that i dip the very ends in red spike it dye

 these are the lures that "I" use to fish any type of weeds, and i attack any weedbed the same,... methodically,... i dont miss much , my casts are placed so that if they left a trail, like in duckweed they wouldnt be more than 5 feet apart

 hope this helps and keep your line wet!

[lwh008]

Great info guys. Just a little more info on the lake:

1. One place is pretty much featureless.  its has a big contour change since its on a channel edge but as it goes back, its pretty shallow. no lay downs or cypress trees.  It's a prime duck hole during the winter.

2. The other grass flat begins at a channel edge where the lake was dredged. The channel goes from 10-12 feet to the 4 foot flat.  as you move up toward the bank, the depth nears 2 ft and the edge is matted hyaciths and stuff, which i usually punch. The flat has kinda patchy grass. A clump here and there mixed with pad stems in some spots. The flat has has a good many cypress trees which I've caught fish off of. However,  I think that that the that the bigs ones shy away from the trees bc everyone hits them.

Once the grass matted last summer, I fished a frog and caught some pretty good ones, but once the sun came up, the top water bite died and the grass was too thick to swim a jig or swimbait. So I flipped around around little bit with no success and then punted and ran to the cypress trees.

 

 

[hookset on 3]

I like to use the Z-Man Grass Kickerz soft plastic paddletail swimbait. Very bouyant and I suggest rigging it texposed with 4/0 wide gap Worm hook.

http://zmanfishing.com/store/categories/elaztech/grass_kickerz