FOMO

[Jsmith1990]

I think I have a case of FOMO ...or maybe more just MO.

 

its disheartening when you hear of all these great bass lures for all these different applications knowing that it would be hard to apply them around my home fishing waters. Baits like jigs, Bladed jigs, crankbaits, jerkbaits, basically anything with an exposed hook just do not work due to the copious amounts of milfoil in basically every body of water I fish. In the dead of summer they even grow out of the water. Even a Texas rig with a pegged weight brings in a couple pounds of this sh**. 
I find myself throwing either top water (in the summer) and weightless Texas rigged worms and creature baits. 

All in all I feel like I miss out being able to catch fish with some of these bass lures and it frustrates the hell out of me. 
 

End rant 
 

 

[Fishes in trees]

In the summer, in nearly all lakes that have some decent depth to them, there is a deep edge to the weedline.  On any point, down the bank a ways each side of the point, there is a deep edge to the weedline.   That is where I live for summer fishing in lakes with vegetation.  I throw a home made jika rig, half ounce or so, to this area,  at the end of the cast I want my bait on the bottom within 3 feet or so of the edge of the deep weedline.  The past 5 years or so, this has been my best technique for big fish.  If you need a commercial version of my home made rig, the VMC Tokyo rig is the tool to use.  Favorite baits for this technique would be a Zoom Brush Hog, Zoom magnum trick worm or a YUM Zellemander.   Now if you feel you got to throw a weightless tx rig into the vegetation, forget it,  peg a weight to it - and  it will go through the vegetation better.   Go as heavy as you need to go to drop to the bottom.  If I'm throwing a worm in to summer vegetation, I throw a big worm - either a 10" Berkley power worm or a thickish 6" or 7" stickball - again with a pegged weight.  I go with 17 or 20 lb Segaur Abrazx.   Reason for the pegged weight is a faster drop gets you more drops over the course of a day.  Don't waste alot of time hopping it once you get to the bottom - once or twice is plenty.  Bring it in and pitch again.  For me at least, the vast majority of hits come on the drop.

 

If  you've got surface vegetation, there is a potential frog bite.  Many guys go bubba - with the bigger frogs and 65 lb braid - and that is an option.  Summertime, I always carry a bubba rig with me and sometimes that is the ticket, with the big floating frog.  Last summer, or maybe the summer before last, a guy on this site wrote about "finesse frogging".   He was using slightly smaller soft plastic frogs, spinning gear with 20 or 30 lb braid and smallish ( 1, 1/0 or 2/0 ) finesse hook with a mono or wire weed guard.   He was throwing this bait and landing it less than a foot from the outside edge of the vegetation, lily pads, what have you.  After letting it set for a moment, he would nudge it off and let it drop.    When I did this the vast majority of my hits came on the drop, between a foot and 3 feet down.

Never caught a big fish doing this ( big fish to me is 20" or more ) but, middle of the summer, middle of the day I caught dozens of slot fish ( 12" to 15") doing this.  Yes, a few time I got buried in the weeds and had to go get them, thus ruining that particular spot for a while - but it seems like when this was working there were lots of other spots.

 

So, there you go - 3 summertime approaches that have worked for me.  Here in Missouri, many lakes have modest to thick vegetation.  My guess is that lakes in New Hampshire have more similarities than they have differences.

 

Lastly, be prepared for summer fishing.  Long sleeve fishing shirt, sunblock on exposed skin, I carry a  1 1/2 or 2 to one ration of water to beer in the cooler.   And a sandwich.   And some of those one bite candy bars.   Current favorite fishing beer either Founders All Day IPA or Bell's Light Hearted Ale (labeled as a lo-cal IPA)