Heavy Lilly pads

[Run2jeepn]

Two of my go to fishing spots have large parts of pretty heavy cover of Lilly pads. I've tried a few different Frogs, but never get any blow ups on them. I've been able to snag a few Bass with a Football Swing jig with Senko's. What other options do I have?

[T-Billy]

A green pumpkin 1/8oz swim jig has worked well for me. I'll crawl it across the pads and let it fall into the holes between them. Twin tail grub trailer.

[padlin]

T rigged soft plastics.

[Captain Phil]

Pads are my favorite cover to fish.  Fishing plastic frogs or toads across the top is what most anglers do.  I've caught some nice fish that way, but hookups are hit and miss.  I use two tactics, spinnerbaits and flipping.  With a spinnerbait, start by paralleling the edge making long casts and slowly retrieving the bait as close to the pads as possible.  Look for places where you can cast back in the pads and bring your bait back to the edge.  Slow down.   Just in case you missed it.... slow down!  Big fish will hammer your spinnerbait in the middle of the day.  They won't chase and they won't move far, so you have to get your bait where the fish is laying in wait.  Try not to disturb the pads, be as stealthy as possible.  Have patience and stick with it.

 

My second best  pad tactic is flipping and pitching.  No need to go into this here as you can YouTube this all day long.  Pads are prime big bass habitat.   The fish are there, you just have to dig them out.

[Catt]

[Ski]

11 minutes ago, Captain Phil said:

 

 

My second best  pad tactic is flipping and pitching.  No need to go into this here as you can YouTube this all day long.  Pads are prime big bass habitat.   The fish are there, you just have to dig them out.

This^^^^

 

[Deleted account]

Depends on the pads, everything form a spinnerbait or swim jig, transitioning to t-rigs, and then to toads and frogs, and finally punching them. Early or late, the open(ish) water around the edges can be good.

[Catt]

Flukes

Weightless Senkos Texas Rigged

Zoom's Ultravibe Speed Worm/Craw with 1/8 oz bullet weight worked on or near the surface.

Spinnerbaits/swim jigs.

[PhishLI]

2 hours ago, Deleted account said:

Depends on the pads

Agree.

 

If pad fields aren't filled with weeds between each pad stem a heavy, dense, un-weighted plastic can be magical. Just let it ride the tops of the pads then drop in. Even just a few inches below the surface might be a difference maker. Rinse and repeat. Perfect on days where they refuse to come up for a standard frog, but are more than happy to eat something right below the surface. This is the case in my lakes more often than not. A 6" Yamamoto Senko rigged on an Owner Twistlock Light 6/0 keeps the worm sleek, but more importantly is the best I've tried for preserving the worm when popping it through pads. Unweighted it comes in at 1/2oz, so if there's a gap it's heavy enough to slide in.  A 5" Strike King Caffeine Shad is another great dense plastic option rigged on the same owner hook.

 

The Keitech Noisy Flapper is a very dense and heavy toad. Heavy enough to cast a mile when rigged un-weighted, it'll also fall into gaps in the pads very nicely, but can be buzzed over the top if they're eating like that. A keel weighted twistlock type 5/0 swimbait hook works great also depending on the situation.

https://www.keitechusa.com/catalog/noisy-flapper.html

 

[TOXIC]

I used to throw a lot of hollow body frogs when I was sponsored by SPRO.  I throw some Ribbit style solid body frogs made by Yamamoto but my all time favorites are a weightless Senko or a weightless Yamamoto DShad drug across pads/grass.  Hookups are much easier and more effective.  

[Mike L]

You have so many good suggestions that I can’t add anything of substance about what to use or not. 
 

How about the possibility real or not that they just may not be where you are, or in a frog state of mind…

Yes, there is such a thing. 
 

If you catch a few on the baits you listed and that bite dies, just leave and come back an hour or so later and use nothing but the style of frogs suggested. 
 

You may be surprised. 
 

 

 

 

Mike

[river-rat]

 

I agree with CATT. A Johnson Silver Minnow is always a good choice around lily pads. 

[throttleplate]

Caught many on hollow body and lost many also. Caught more and lost none using a t-rigged rage manace flipin into the pads.

This year i am going to try something new so i will start with plastic toads t-rigged and lettin them fall into the holes off the pads.

Also berkley maxscent 8" kingtails just because i want to try different baits and need to use them as i have many packs of them.

[Catt]

7 hours ago, Mike L said:

in a frog state of mind…

Yes, there is such a thing. 

 

Or whatever lure ?

[Basser2021]

13 hours ago, Captain Phil said:

Pads are my favorite cover to fish.  Fishing plastic frogs or toads across the top is what most anglers do.  I've caught some nice fish that way, but hookups are hit and miss.  I use two tactics, spinnerbaits and flipping.  With a spinnerbait, start by paralleling the edge making long casts and slowly retrieving the bait as close to the pads as possible.  Look for places where you can cast back in the pads and bring your bait back to the edge.  Slow down.   Just in case you missed it.... slow down!  Big fish will hammer your spinnerbait in the middle of the day.  They won't chase and they won't move far, so you have to get your bait where the fish is laying in wait.  Try not to disturb the pads, be as stealthy as possible.  Have patience and stick with it.

 

My second best  pad tactic is flipping and pitching.  No need to go into this here as you can YouTube this all day long.  Pads are prime big bass habitat.   The fish are there, you just have to dig them out.

Good suggestions

[Run2jeepn]

Thanks everyone... Tons of great info. 

[RHuff]

This thread is appropriate...… I had a huge blowup on a frog over a thick lily pad field yesterday evening..... It violently engulfed the frog and by the time I got the hook set I was locked up in the pad stems and bass was long gone.... 

[BlakeMolone]

On 6/6/2022 at 5:31 AM, Captain Phil said:

Pads are my favorite cover to fish.  Fishing plastic frogs or toads across the top is what most anglers do.  I've caught some nice fish that way, but hookups are hit and miss.  I use two tactics, spinnerbaits and flipping.  With a spinnerbait, start by paralleling the edge making long casts and slowly retrieving the bait as close to the pads as possible.  Look for places where you can cast back in the pads and bring your bait back to the edge.  Slow down.   Just in case you missed it.... slow down!  Big fish will hammer your spinnerbait in the middle of the day.  They won't chase and they won't move far, so you have to get your bait where the fish is laying in wait.  Try not to disturb the pads, be as stealthy as possible.  Have patience and stick with it.

 

My second best  pad tactic is flipping and pitching.  No need to go into this here as you can YouTube this all day long.  Pads are prime big bass habitat.   The fish are there, you just have to dig them out.

Any advice on fishing pads in really muddy water?

[Captain Phil]

1 hour ago, BlakeMolone said:

Any advice on fishing pads in really muddy water?

 

When we moved to Central Florida, I had never fished truly muddy water.  Back then, the Harris Chain water looked like coffee with heavy cream.  You could not see a spinnerbait down more than 6" deep.   I thought I was a decent angler having had some success in Lake Okeechobee.  I quickly discovered I didn't know squat about bass fishing and had to learn all over again.

 

When the water is turbid, muddy or for whatever reason has low visibility, bass behavior changes.  Bass move shallow and hold close to cover.  They feed by vibration alone.  They don't chase and their strike zone shrinks.  In water like that, vibrating crank baits rule the day.  There was a time in the Chain when bass fishing was not fishing unless you had a Rattle Trap tied on.  You couldn't buy a bite on a top water lure unless you moved into the clearer canals.  Most of the tournaments were won in those canals.  A good friend and fellow bass club member grew tired of hearing me complain about the poor fishing.  He took me out for a lesson in flipping.  I had tried it back in the eighties with some success, but had not done it for some time.   This changed everything.   I went from a constant skunk fest to consistently catching big fish.  Eight, nine, ten and eleven pound bass came into my boat.  I started experimenting with different lures.  I glued rattles into the bait, tried paddle tail worms and worked with different sizes and colors.  I won a local tournament with only two bass, one 9 and one 7.  I only got two bites that day.  Here's a photo from that time below.

 

If you want to fish muddy water successfully, my advice is to learn all you can about flipping.  Leave all your other rods at home until you build up your confidence.  It works better than most people will ever know.

 

 

[Mike L]

Fipping/pitchin into any moderate or heavy cover can increase your hit rate in stained water. 
90% of my heavier bags have come from exactly that. 
 

The darker and shallower the water the easier it is to pattern as they are usually more predictable in where and how they set up. 
Look for isolated areas of vegetation off any type off a hard line, especially if there is any light to moderate water movement. 
 

On Okeechobee my toughest days are blue sky’s with clear water. 
The only advantage is when sight fishing on beds which is my preferred method but that comes with its own rules. 
 

Bass behavior does change in ways @Captain Phil mentioned when water clarity drastically takes out a bass’s preferred method of feeding.

 

Understanding how that effects a bass in conjunction on how and what they do to compensate will increase your hit rate.
Swimming vibration generating hard or plastic baits can be key some days because of its shrunk strike zone, but don’t discount working over an area throughly padded or not, with a well placed and presented pitch and/or flip

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mike

[Mike L]

Another point if I may…

Sunday at a tournament on The Lake, after approx 6” to 8” of rain the day before, we couldn’t find even “clean” water, let alone clear water to save our life. 

We stayed in an area all day that usually doesn’t muddy up but did drastically in no more than 3 ft of water.
My boater kept switching from a trap, to a chatter bait early but couldn’t get bit.

At the end of the day he took 4th with the 3rd single heaviest fish. 
I placed 10th doing exactly what I explained above. 

After giving up on vibration, he used a weightless 6” stick bait and I switched back and forth from the same stick bait early and a Magnum Speed Worm late for that little extra vibration when the water warmed, every bite we got was from pitching to obvious targets. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mike
 

 

[Catt]

Are you talking water that has become muddy due to rain or water that is naturally offcolored?

 

Two different scenarios requiring different approaches.

[BlakeMolone]

22 minutes ago, Catt said:

Are you talking water that has become muddy due to rain or water that is naturally offcolored?

 

Two different scenarios requiring different approaches.

Both actually. I have a beautiful small lake that  is full of pads, literally like 80 percent of the surface is pads. It’s always stained but right now it’s downright muddy, along with every other body of water in eastern Oklahoma. We’ve had a lot of rain, going out tomorrow and hoping to put something together. I’ve had luck with a big bright buzz bait in the muddy water and a black and blue chatterbait.

I will add that I have had very little luck ever fishing the pads at this lake, my best days out there are actually just fishing the one edge without pads that has shade from the trees almost all day. 

[Columbia Craw]

For me, there are three ways to fish pads and the depth and density are major factors.

Something that floats and can be moved and paused. A frog is my first choice.

Something I can maneuver through the pads just under the surface level.  I like a Freedom Tackle swim jig rigged weedless with a boot tail swimbait.

Something heavy to pitch into small openings and drop to the bottom. A creature bait or a jig do the trick.

[Boomstick]

If frogs aren't working then it might be time to break out a punching setup. If you can get a spinnerbait, chatterbait or maybe crankbait along the edges sometimes that works well too.