What can I do, if anything, to fish the bottom of a mucky pond?

[ironbjorn]

My primary pond has a muddy, mossy, dead leaves, unidentifiable nasty sludge bottom. I do well here fishing weightless, slow sinking plastics, mid depth moving baits, and top water baits. One of my favorite ways to fish is a jig and craw, but outside of pitching to a spot, they're impossible to fish; the same with Texas rigs. I've tried split shots and Carolina rigs, as well, with the theory being that the nastiness stays off the bait and instead clumps up at the weight further up the line, but no luck. Is there anything I can do that I'm not thinking of that can allow me to fish the bottom with some weight behind it? Dead sticking and twitching weightless plastic once it sinks is an option but that's not really what I'm asking.

[WRB]

Keep in mind the decaying derbies on the bottom use up dissolved oxygen that fish like bass need. Find hard bottom areas where the bass should be located and avoid muck.

Tom

[schplurg]

If there's snot on the bottom I stay away from the bottom, period. There's no way to avoid getting it on my rig. 

 

There's this stuff that I call "hair" at the bottom of the creek I fish. Looks like very long black hair like from the movie The Ring. It sticks to branches and stuff underwater and the current makes it look like thick flowing(?) very long manes of hair. Nasty, I hate it. It's here and there in the creek. Dead plant fibers of some kind I guess.

 

I just avoid it or stay above it. If you're not afraid of being laughed at you could try a bobber I suppose.

 

 

[ironbjorn]

40 minutes ago, WRB said:

Keep in mind the decaying derbies on the bottom use up dissolved oxygen that fish like bass need. Find hard bottom areas where the bass should be located and avoid muck.

Tom

It's 6 acres and I've fished it thoroughly for a long time. Only where there is a very small creek do you not pull up muck. And I mean it's the area of maybe a living room in this spot that isn't muck. I do catch fish there but never from trying the bottom, always something that swims. I caught a 6lber out of here last summer here in the north. It's a quality pond that can give you some crazy numbers. Bass do well despite scientific theory. 

Just now, schplurg said:

If there's snot on the bottom I stay away from the bottom, period. There's no way to avoid getting it on my rig. 

 

There's this stuff that I call "hair" at the bottom of the creek I fish. Looks like very long black hair like from the movie The Ring. It sticks to branches and stuff underwater and the current makes it look like thick flowing(?) very long manes of hair. Nasty, I hate it. It's here and there in the creek. Dead plant fibers of some kind I guess.

 

I just avoid it or stay above it. If you're not afraid of being laughed at you could try a bobber I suppose.

 

 

No need for a bobber. I'm admittedly an elitist and only use artificial baits. The float and fly is an option, but again no need as the bass are aggressive and do bite anything that moves or slow sinks. It's just that with my schedule this place makes up most of my fishing and I really love jigs and big ol worms on a Texas rigs, but this place seems to take that option from me.

[schplurg]

I meant a bobber with a "whatever-rigged" plastic, like floating it above the muck. I have no idea if that would work well, I haven't used a bobber since I was 10 years old worm fishing for trout  I thought I'd heard of people using bobbers with certain lures. Heck I dunno LOL.

 

[schplurg]

Actually I did fish a pond with a mucky bottom 2 weeks ago. Totally forgot.

 

I started with a split shot rigged Zoom finesse worm of some kind. It started pulling up snot from the bottom so I removed the weight and it performed a lot better.

[kayaking_kev]

I believe it was @J Francho who gave me some advice once to try use a light Ned Rig, so the bait will sit on top of the muck instead of sinking into it.

 

Would a Bottom Bouncer with a short leader work for big worms, or would it be too much going on near the bait, I don't know, but maybe it would work if the fish are aggressive like you say.

[BrianMDTX]

The pond I fish is exactly like that. There’s not much plant life growing on the bottom, but it’s mostly mud and leaves. Even a Ned rig gets fouled frequently. 

 

I fish a lot on the bottom, though. The vast majority is weightless plastics with embedded or Texposed hooks. Various TR worms, Senkos, craws, etc. Every now and then I may use a very small bullet weight if I’m hopping it in at a good pace, but 95% of the time it’s weightless. Of course, I also use topwaters and baits that stay off the bottom, but I bet I’ve caught the majority of my bass on the bottom. And I’ve caught the most on a wacky rig. Using an o ring seems to keep the hook from getting fouled better than hooking it through the stickbait. It also saves Senkos lol. 

 

Your pond, at 6 acres, is a little bigger than the 2-3 acre ponds I fish. I really have no need to bomb cast, and fishing either from my boat or the bank, I can usually get a weightless plastic (especially a Senko) where I need it. 

[Jigfishn10]

Drop shot and use a mojo sinker? Just throwing out an idea here.

[scaleface]

I just avoid that type of stuff and just pitch a Texas rigged worm around visible cover but maybe a tail weighted worm would work .

[Captain Phil]

Florida is full of lakes like you described.  Any weight at all will often bring back a load of bottom crap.  If you are going to fish plastics, you must fish them with as little weight as possible.  Wacky rigs are one option.  Another is to fish a weightless Texas rig with a swivel about a foot in front of the bait.  It's a Carolina rig with no weight, just the swivel.  You can fish it in deeper water and it's weedless.  I fish this rig on a spinning rod with 8 pound mono.  Try it with a Zoom Trick worm.  If you don't get bit, send it back to me for a refund.  ?

[00bullitt]

Drop shot with a light cylinder style weight or throw a wacky rig. 

 

I have a pond right by my house that a DS slays them. When the DS bite is slow, I throw a wacky Ocho. 

 

Bottom is a green soup with a few rocks.

[Dens228]

I'd be ripping a swim jig/Keitech Fat along the bottom. 

[throttleplate]

hey wheres the love for the tokyo rig?

[Team9nine]

Just now, throttleplate said:

hey wheres the love for the tokyo rig?

 

Never been any love for the Tokyo rig here - just disdain    LMAO

 

I would agree with the wacky/swimming options listed above, and could see where a light dropshot might work since you have leader length adjustability. 

[Chris at Tech]

I find a Rage rig works decently for me in similar situations.

[Luke Barnes]

I was thinking drop shot. Pencil weight and a good long leader. Weight will pick up some muck but that will help keep it down IMO. Bait stays above the muck and moves freely. Use an EWG hook and texas rig a worm on it. 

[A-Jay]

16 hours ago, ironbjorn said:

My primary pond has a muddy, mossy, dead leaves, unidentifiable nasty sludge bottom. I do well here fishing weightless, slow sinking plastics, mid depth moving baits, and top water baits. One of my favorite ways to fish is a jig and craw, but outside of pitching to a spot, they're impossible to fish; the same with Texas rigs. I've tried split shots and Carolina rigs, as well, with the theory being that the nastiness stays off the bait and instead clumps up at the weight further up the line, but no luck. Is there anything I can do that I'm not thinking of that can allow me to fish the bottom with some weight behind it? Dead sticking and twitching weightless plastic once it sinks is an option but that's not really what I'm asking.

One of the few lakes where I actually target green bass locally, is very similar to what you've described above.  This place is a very old mostly shallow natural lake, with a ton of both live & dead vegetation just about every where, including the bottom.  Fishing's pretty good but it ALL happens in 3-7 ft of clear water.  Topwater was an easy choice;  buzz baits, frogs, swimming toads and the like worked.  Spinnerbait's in the more open areas as well as a small swimbait rigged weedless. 

This lake is where I always take my wife, who is a Spinning gear only gal. 

So most of what I mentioned above she didn't what to throw. 

But rig her up a weightless, Texas Rigged stick bait and she did very well, especially when it was calm.  Windy days proved more of a challenge.

Eventually I got her to fish a light (1/4 oz) swim jig; usually with a either a grub or a craw type trailer.  Was a light wire hook model as she uses 20lb braid & a 10 lb mono leader.

This worked well but still wasn't weedless enough to offer total fishing effectiveness. 

   I started playing around with a 'light punch rig' that she could fish like a swim jig but would have next level weedless effectiveness.   After a little back & forth with weight type & size - we settled on either a 3/16 or 1/4 oz LEAD bullet weight.  The rig needed to 'sit on top' of the weed on the bottom rather than plunging through them.  When it did that, she could fish it with a stop & go presentation and would get way more bites.  But if the weight was too heavy or dense (tungsten), the rig would disappear through the 12 inches of soft weeds and rarely got bites that way. 

 You really want the bait to swim on the move & glide to the bottom on the 'fall'. 

    That whole story started about 10 years ago and that little A-Jay rig (as she calls it) has been killing decent green bass on that lake ever since. 

     

https://youtu.be/gmTNmxOg8t4

 

https://youtu.be/r3vHcCGTNTQ?t=387

 

Hope that helps 

A-Jay

 

 

[Jigfishn10]

It was a matter of time but I knew that one would make it out of the woodworks @A-Jay. I still love it!

[Jonas Staggs]

Why not drop shot? You could have it close to the bottom but just out of the muck.

[Sphynx]

I'd be tying on a dropshot if I were going to fish in that sort of slop, of course, the other people who have answered have given plenty of good reasons to avoid doing so in the first place,  the beauty of a drop shot is that you get basically endless control of how far off the bottom your bait is going to end up...so it's worth learning when you need that kind of control. 

[Lead Head]

@A-Jay I never considered using the less dense sinkers to try to sit on top of goo... thats genius!

 

 

[A-Jay]

7 hours ago, Jonas Staggs said:

Why not drop shot? You could have it close to the bottom but just out of the muck.

 In my situation described above, a drop shot works OK especially if the plastic is Tex-posed and the presentation is made close to vertical.  However fishing in 3-7 feet of clear water, that might not be the best deal.   Once the rig is casted away from the boat, the 'tag' line with the weight, can keep the bait 'up' and out of the mess but because of the angle of the dangle, that leader length starts getting pretty long to do the job.  Ends up fairly unruly on the cast and usually needs to have a decent amount of weeds cleaned off it after every one.

Gets old.

That light punch rig deal is far better IMO.

A-Jay

[Peddiesake]

Less dense weight got me thinking. Rotating jig head minus the hook. Anybody got a better idea?

[Boomstick]

If the water isn't too deep where you're worried about the oxygen being used up, it's the perfect situation for a drop shot.