Catching Weeds

[BigJohnny]

I fish mostly texas rigged plastics, but I've been trying to spread my wings and try some other techniques (particularly carolina rigging and shaky head). I catch ten pounds of weeds on every cast. Is that a sign that the spots I'm fishing may not favor these techniques or is it a pretty common problem that you just have to deal with?

[D4u2s0t]

Certain situations call for certain rigs.  If you're throwing into very heavy cover, an exposed setup like a wacky rig is not ideal.  (unless you're ok with losing hooks)  A carolina rig will get caught up in heavy weeds more so than a texas rig.  If you're really throwing into some heavy muck, you want to be as weedless as possible.  A fish is not going to eat a 10 pound clump of weeds swimming through the water lol.  Try fishing the outside edges of the weeds with your carolina rig as opposed to throwing it right in the middle of the heavy stuff.

[bigtimfish]

I fish the Tx and C rig in some pretty heavy grass. I really don't catch a lot of grass though. Are you catching them on the bait? or on the weight of your c rig? If on the bait itself you need to do a hook check. Don't expose the hook tip, skin hook. If it catches on the weight, well that is something that can't be helped. As far as shakey head goes, I no longer throw them because of all the grass that grows in Toledo Bend and Rayburn. The jighead just catches so much grass it gets frustrating to me.

[Raul]

I fish mostly texas rigged plastics, but I've been trying to spread my wings and try some other techniques (particularly carolina rigging and shaky head). I catch ten pounds of weeds on every cast. Is that a sign that the spots I'm fishing may not favor these techniques or is it a pretty common problem that you just have to deal with?

If plastic baits are what tickle your fancy you can try first by using the lightest sinker you can get away with so it doesn 't dig into the weeds, you can change one thing for other, for example, instead of c-rigging you can use a split shot rig and change the split shot size until you find one that doesn 't dig into the weeds, same thing goes for shakey heads or T-rigs. Weightless rigging can also be another thing to consider.

So it depends a lot, specially when it comes to how the weeds are distributed, how close to the surface they are and such.

[BigJohnny]

I was catching weeds with my sinker on the c-rig not the hook. I will probably try going to a lighter weight. The problem is that I fish from shore so I'm already limited on spots I can fish, and there seems to be heavy vegetation in every part of every lake I fish. I usually produce with texas and weightless rigs. Like I said, I'm just trying to learn some new techniques.

[Hammer 4]

Depending on how thick the weeds are, ect..ya might try slowrolling a weightless T rigged lizard over the top of the weeds, this has worked for me, when nothing else would. Also as someone mentioned, cast out along the weedline.

[Catt]

Think vertical

[steezy]

Its like dipping for fish, in the heavy slop you can drop down into small openings but you better be ready for action and a good rod helps too since youre probably gonna be pulling up a lot of junk with the fish.  Ive pulled'em out of a pond recently with so much covering that it looked like they were gift wrapped.

[AverageJoeBass]

In the small farm ponds where I fish the water levels of the non-spring fed ponds has dropped tremendously. Which makes for a lot of hydrilla and other grasses. What we used to work around this (I love using a crankbait but pulled in more grass than anything with it) was to just use a simple worm hook, no weights, and a fluke rigged weedless. It worked beautifully as you would come to a patch of grass you could finesse the bait across the grass patches and you could make it drop in between the grass spots and pull it over them without catching any grass. We caught 17 bass that day in about 4 hours using almost only that. The water level at that particular pond was about 5 ft. low.

Pic below was the big one of the day.

[J Francho]

Uhhhh....try walking a hollow frog.

[BigJohnny]

I have also considered trying a drop shot rig with a 3/8 ounce weight. Any thoughts on that?

[cabullwinkle]

drop shot would work well so  you are above the weeds.  Good idea.

[steezy]

Hey AverageJoeBass, thats a nice looking fish you got there.

I gotta get to your part of TX and get me some of those! Im in Frisco (Dallas).

[twitchfish]

If I am C-rigging in grass or heavy weeds, I have had success switching the big front weight to a big bullet weight, lower profile helps me. I am using some large brass bullets too.

Twitch

[CWB]

Most t-rigged baits will come through some pretty thick stuff. As Raul said, use the lightest weight you can get away with. On my home lake it's not the weeds, which are pretty thick in the summer, it's the muck or algae that I get fouled in more. When that is the case I throw a frog over the top as J Francho suggested, or a Rage Tail Shad. That bait seems to pull fish out of some pretty thick crap also.

Not too many bass have seen a buzzbait in the slop.

[chuck52]

I've been trying to improve my techniques for drop shotting in heavy weeds.  It's a perfect solution but requires much more patience and touch than a texas rig.  Practice makes perfect.

[EasternPAfisherman]

Its like dipping for fish, in the heavy slop you can drop down into small openings but you better be ready for action and a good rod helps too since youre probably gonna be pulling up a lot of junk with the fish. Ive pulled'em out of a pond recently with so much covering that it looked like they were gift wrapped.

haha. I wonder what it is (shakes weeds). It's a bass! happy birthday to me!