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Fishing Weed-filled Lakes
| To: pros@gyb.baits.com
Hi. We are beginning tournament fisherman in Northern Illinois. The chain of lakes that we fish are natural lakes that are fairly dirty and receive tons of pressure from both fisherman and recreation boaters alike. The lakes are choked with weeds during the summer with deep water in two of the seven lakes. The lakes contain numerous shallow channels lined with docks and full of weeds/slop. I would love to fish the offshore structure and deep weeds because the shallow bite turns off after 8 and every tournament fisherman ends up in the channels or throwing at the shallow slop on the main lake. However, I am encountering difficulty finding fish in deeper water (any advice about how to find fish in deep water and how to control the boat w/ all the
traffic-induced waves). I'm not sure if the fish move deep b/c of the extreme pressure or if they are burying themselves in the shallow cover (which there is plenty of). My problem with continuing to fish shallow is that all of the slop already has already been exposed to hundreds of plastic rats, leading me to believe that these fish have already received ample pressure. I believe that some of the bigger bass are in thick weeds around docks, but I'm not sure how to fish there and if it's worth the time since it takes a push pole to plow through the weeds from one dock to another. If you have any thoughts/ideas on how to fish such a lake, I would greatly appreciate feedback.
Best wishes,
Kris 'Taille' Kirby and Kasey 'Stoup' Kirby
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Russ Bassdozer says:
Hi Kris,
Okay, I'd like to jump right into this. First, if there are stands of tall grass (reeds, phragmites, bulrush, cattail) AND they grow out of 3-6 feet of water, you will find bass buried (and I mean buried) in them. Use big Texas-rigged worms with ribbontails - stout-tailed ones that won't tear up easily in the grass. However, this may be a known pattern to many anglers...so, you have to get the worms way back there where few other anglers are throwing them. Look for cuts in the face of the grass stands - and look for small open spots a few feet back into the tall grass. Most anglers won't hit these "inner pockets". They're hard to get a lure in and out of - but bass use them. I give more information on how to fish tall grass berms at the end of my article at http://www.bassdozer.com/articles/jignopig.shtml.
As for the docks, the ones you describe sound very shallow if you need a pushpole..and they are probably obvious targets of other anglers too. Again, I suggest you need 3 to 6 feet of water in the vicinity to make it a good dock for bass to lie under. Then, get some 4" to 5" tubebaits on Oldham wireguard screwlock moss/grass heads and skip them as far back as you can into the open shaded areas under the dock. Aim for right where the dock meets the shoreline. Let the tubes lie there there for the longest time because many of the bass under there will be resting and lethargic. They may need some coaxing to wake up and hit your tube. I give more information on how to wake them up at the end of my article at http://www.bassdozer.com/articles/zipper_worms.shtml
and in http://www.bassdozer.com/articles/grubs.shtml.
As for the deep water, use fiberguard jigs and spider grubs. I would not fish very much deeper that 20 feet for largemouth, but smallmouth or spotted bass (if they exist in your lakes, but it doesn't sound like they do) can be found up to 30 or 40 feet deep. First, you are trying to find deep cover...any irregular spots out there. Doesn't matter what the cover is or where it is as long as there is some irregularity or rubble on the bottom of any sort. Several kinds of predators will be living on this rubble - bass and panfish (sunnies, crappies, yellow perch) plus crayfish. The bigger predators (bass) will eat the smaller ones (panfish) on the cover and so on down the food chain. So use colors that resemble panfish - Yamamoto's 180, 214 are smoke-colored panfish imitators. In darker
water, try watermelons or pumpkins (194, 216, 208, etc.). On any of the above, don't forget to experiment with dipping the tails in chartreuse dye. These colors all have a panfish trigger in them. Then there are the crawfish colors (021, 051, 157, 163, 236, 221, etc.). I give more information on how to find deep cover and fish jigs in the article, Fishing Deep Summer Points with Jigs, at www.bassdozer.com.
If you can't find any deep cover, you'll have to make some yourself with big bushes. small trees, cement and bricks. Just don't tell anybody or you'll be defeating your purpose. Don Applegarth, one of our Staff Writers from Georgia, gives more info on how to do this in the Nov/Dec 2000 issue of our bimonthly print magazine, the Inside Line.
Well, I've tried to be give you some quick but concentrated info here, and I hope it helps.
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