What would you have done?

[Lunker]

Well, was out fishing all afternoon(1-7), and had an enjoyable but very frustrating time. I fished only about an hour on the first lake, then quit their because of a recent weed die off and there was so much floating around that my electric motor was really struggling, and I wanted to fish more without it dying. So I switched lakes.

The water was like pea soup on this lake, and I was having trouble finding fish originally. I fished soft plastics around docks, wood, overhanging shrubs, weededges, with nothing. Frogs over the pads, nothing. Weededge with spinners, nothing.(No deep water cover to speak of in the lake). Finally I got to the shallowest, weediest bay I've ever seen, but had a hunch they might be back there. Almost immediatley I caught a nice 17 incher with a senko in one of the few openings. Then I realized there were numbers of big fish in there, feeding on bluegills and other baitfish that were there feeding on bugs. They were exploding every few minutes on the surface, and were feeding actively, but here was the problem:

This was the thickest junk I've ever fished. It was in a few feet of water, with thick matted milfoil covered in the thickest pads I've seen. I tried fishing a frog over it, but the pads were so thick that I could cast and retrieve without it ever touching water! When they did hit my bait, all they got was a mouthful of pads. This problem occured with any thing I fished on the surface.

So I switched to the heaviest jig I had(black/blue 3/4 ounce I think), and tried that. I am not very good with the jig/pig presentation, but I managed to break into a hole on maybe 1 out of every 8 casts. The rest of the time it just wouldn't be able to find a hole that wasn't totally clogged. And even when i did manage to get it through, I wasn't getting any hits.

I ended up finishing the day with only that one bass boated. What could I have done with this kind of situation?!

A testament to how thick these weeds were. I watched a bass miss a small bluegill who shot out of the water to escape but got stuck on top and just flopped around on the top of the pads for about a minute before it managed to find any water.

[OnTheWater]

sounds familiar. I hate those situations, because I don't think there's much more you can do. Some might say to use the heavy jig, but I'm not confident in that presentation and would probably re-tie back to a frog after a couple casts. I guess I'm kinda intrested to hear if anyone has a solid solution to this kind of fishing.

[TonkaBass]

Try rigging 2 rods. One rod with a surface lure, and another with a heavy florida rig or jig. When you get a blow that misses the frog, cast the jig to the blow up. If you don't boat the fish that blew up, visually mark the spot, or even throw a bouy,wait about 15 minutes and try it again with the jig. Most the time these shallow fish don't move very far in 15 minutes.

[Juice]

Whats a Florida rig? 1st time ive heard of this.

[Deitz Dittrich]

Juice-A florida rig is pretty much a texas rig, however the sinker is pegged. Often times you use a sinker with a screw lock on it to screw into the plastic to peg it.

[EBass]

I've had tht happen before on a local lake. The "duck weed" and Milfoil were really thick but I saw movement under them. I cast out said frog and they took a whack at it but couldn't locate it. It's prolly a foot or less water. I cast back and it misses again. I cast back and nothing, then more nothing. Then I moved on. Where's Kevin Van Dam when ya need him?

[FishinBill]

not that I do this....but have seen on tv....pro's would rake out holes in the thick stuff then come back like 30 minutes later....again not like I have done it or carry a rake in my boat...I have seen where other boat have been through with a prop and cleared a path...but again you'd have to come back after awhile

[Lunker]

Tonka Bass, I did try that, but the problem was where I could get a fish to blow up, chances are I couldn't get a jig through that spot, I managed to a few times but didn't catch anything.

[Deitz Dittrich]

Lunk-Often times a heavy tube will penatrate areas that a jig will not.. I will often flip 1/2 oz tungston pegged worm weights in front of tubes, and get thew matt grass WAY easier!

[st.crioxfishin]

I would definatley agree Deitz. I love to fish a tube with a big pegged weight ahead of it in the thick stuff.

[senkoskipper]

If it was that thick i would have used a heavy swivel weight and start drop shotting. The way how the weight hits the water first really makes it penetrate those thick weeds.

[jackfish]

I've had some success on LOTW using a Large Berkley Ribbon tail rigged on the heaviest slider head jig I can find. When the weeds and pad get real heavy this has worked but you can't take long casts. You've got to dabble around in any available opennings. Doodle and flip I guess you can call it.