Fishing weedy lakes - strategy for 1st time on the lake

[Felix77]

I found a lake which is extremely weedy.  Seems like there is weeds for miles.  With that said I am familiar with fishing weeds in terms of techniques.  The big question I have is where do I start?  Looking for suggestions on how I should go about exploring all these weeds.  How do you do it?

[Bruce424]

Depending how thick or if it's lilies or hydrilla or both. Little boot tail swimbait spinnerbait, texas rigs, frogs. Fish the edges of weeds first.

[wnspain]

All weeds are not created equal...find out if they are bottom rooted or floating. If its floating, fish the top with a frog or similar, or punch through it and fish what's underneath it. I bottom rooted, fish something weedless that suspends, or carolina rig with some buoyant creatures 

[the reel ess]

Weightless Trick Worm. Frog.

[RichF]

Grass fishing is my jam.  I look for mixtures of 2 or more types, hard structure in or around grass, and subtle depth changes.  Fishing acres of grass beds is tiring and can mess with your confidence but if you stick with it, it can be very rewarding. 

I'm flipping 95% of the time, frogging the other 5%. 

[roadwarrior]

[Catt]

Fish the structure under the weeds

[Quesenek]

If I'm on a boat/kayak I start at the edge of the weeds/pads if there is an edge and then I start in toward the shore.

What I use depends on what I have and what kind of plant life I'm dealing with. I usually end up punching through the weeds with a creature/craw or a trick worm.

[jonnyblazex]

  RichF had some very good advice.  Look for something different.  Sometimes you see a log or stick, rock, or different vegetation amongst the other vegetation, but just in a small area.  I have noticed many times, I have caught a bass in this area.

[ww2farmer]

Weeds and boat docks are my specialty.

Good places to start are, and what I look for when fishing weeds are:

#1 Any kind of change in the weed bed....like for instance, if you have a long straight weed line, and then it turns in or out, makes a point, tapers off, etc... Good bet there will be fish there

#2 Holes..................a hole in the grass means something on the bottom is different...........rocks,wood, whatever............I like the smaller holes, they seem to not get hit by everyone and there brother like large obvious ones do

#3 Mixtures of weeds......any time (at least on my lakes) where two different types of grass meet, there will be fish, as often it's  a change in bottom composition. 

#4 Milfoil...............Milfoil................Milfoil................and did I say Milfoil. It trumps all other weeds. If there is Milfoil in this lake bass will be near it, or in it............most of the time they will prefer it to ANY other weed.

#5 Bait............you can fish acres of fishless water, because there is no food in the grass for the bass. Look for bluegills, and other panfish,and you will have found bass.

#6 close to deeper water....grass that is close to deeper water is often the best grass to get a hog out of. Esp if there is something in the  area close by outside the grass, like a rock pile, wood, sunken man made crap, etc...

 

 

[Felix77]

FWIW I always like to provide feedback back to the post.   Some observations from my trek out heeding this advice ...

1 - I am impatient.  Flipping and pitching takes time.  It wasn't until I slowed down on potential spots that I got some catches.  It wasn't until I slowed down that I actually got bit on weeds close to a dropoff.

2 - Fishing in the weeds is a PIA but worth it.   I decided to frog out a spot which was a little different.  It looked to be a milfoil and something else blend with numerous small pockets scattered throughout.  It was a challenge to even keep the frog from getting snagged on some of the junk but it paid off in 3 of my biggest fish on this lake.

3 - This catches nice ones!   In doing this for a few trips now I have yet to catch something less than 14".  Maybe I am lucky thus far BUT this is paying off for me!

Flipping:  3/8oz+ bullet pegged with a black/blue tip senko.

Frog:  Strike King Frog - Black

[BassB8Caster]

I love fishing the weeds as well. This weekend i did pretty well in the weeds first thing in the morning. Biggest were 3.4 and 3.7. I like throwing texas rigged craw or pit boss, 6" lizard, and swimbait. 

[OkobojiEagle]

Catt gets a little wordy, but you should go back and wade through his response... fish the spots you would fish if the weeds weren't there.

 

oe

[A-Jay]

51 minutes ago, OkobojiEagle said:

Catt gets a little wordy, but you should go back and wade through his response... fish the spots you would fish if the weeds weren't there.

 

oe

I laughed out loud right there ~

A-Jay

[frosty]

I was doing some weed fishing with a worm yesterday, I noticed a lot of bass under the floating vegetation, staying in the shade, and attacking anything that passed by, and if I didn't get a bite I'd slowly drag the worm over the top of the weeds and usually have one blow up on it when it got near a hole. 

[Catt]

11 hours ago, OkobojiEagle said:

Catt gets a little wordy, but you should go back and wade through his response... fish the spots you would fish if the weeds weren't there.

 

oe

Some can't see the forest for the trees