Successful Bait for Heavy Brush???

[Panama]

I have a friend that sank approximately 30 Christmas trees out from his dock and another 20 or so on a drop-off down from his house. He collected them from his subdivision off the street last year and sank them with cinder blocks. He crappie fishes them. I fish a lot of brush piles so I am sorta familiar with the typical baits used to fish them. I have fished jigs and Texas worms and wacky rigs with weedless hooks. They are in about 10-20 feet of water from the most shallow to the deepest and mostly stacked on top of or next to each other

I guess it is the small cedar and spruce branches .... But I cannot hardly fish them without getting hung up and scaring the fish when I get the bait free.... There are nice bass there when I can fish them and have good luck before I get hung and disturb everything..... Does anybody have a trick or something that this old codger might not know? Even the lead weight on a Texas rig gets hung up in the Vs of the branches till you shake it free......and I know I am scaring off fish there.... I have tried pretty much what I know...anything beyond the typical rigs I know? Thanks.

[Ryan]

Try a perfect worm hook. They come thru cover pretty well.

[4Kboater]

Lots of secret brush piles on my lake north of Houston. I use a baby brushhog T-rigged with the bullet weight pegged so that it doesn't slide up the line. Don't expose the hook barb at all.

[Bass Junkie]

Hopefully he sank them where the butt ends are all facing the same way. If you can figure that out then cast where you can drag your bait through from the butt toward top. If he just sank them all different directions, then good luck, that will be a a bait magnet.

[c rig]

That's why when I used to make brushpiles I'd use willow branches instead of Christmas trees, your lure comes through willows better.

Try a light Texas rig, peg the sinker, fish it vertically, count it down pulling line from your reel to the first guide until you have it just at the depth you want. Just try not to get it inside the branches.

[catch5]

Use a light sinker and try a straight tail worm. Something like a magnum trick worm. Fish it real snow and just try to feather it through the branches. Keep your hooked buried in the plastic a little deeper

[PowerFish]

New christmas trees are a b***h to fish in my opinion. It takes a few years for the little twigs to degrade off and make a fishable brushpile. Once all the little stuff is gone, they fish much better. They do hold fish from day one though...

[Panama]

Hopefully he sank them where the butt ends are all facing the same way. If you can figure that out then cast where you can drag your bait through from the butt toward top. If he just sank them all different directions, then good luck, that will be a a bait magnet.

I wish!!!!! But no. He just put them on his pontoon boat and tied on cinder blocks and threw them overboard. It is pretty cool to see them on the down imagining though. They are bait magnets .... I have fished a lot of junk in my life but these are the hanging up-est things I have ever fished. Then when you shake the bait loose I know it scares off the fish. Thanks to all for the tips.

[Panama]

Try a perfect worm hook. They come thru cover pretty well.

Most things I saw recommended I have already tried. I have been fishing them for a couple of months.m they hold fish...grrrrrrr.
BUT.....I have not tried this. I ordered a pack from BPS online today. We will see. Not sure it will work better than a trick worm and pegged weight but I will try it. Never have seen them before... The weight looks very streamlined and skinny so it might not hang as badly as a regular weight.

[BOATS]

Could use a nail weight.

[Bass Junkie]

I wish!!!!! But no. He just put them on his pontoon boat and tied on cinder blocks and threw them overboard. It is pretty cool to see them on the down imagining though. They are bait magnets .... I have fished a lot of junk in my life but these are the hanging up-est things I have ever fished. Then when you shake the bait loose I know it scares off the fish. Thanks to all for the tips.

Nothing you can do about that really, they are just going to be bait magnets when they are sank that way. Willows are better, especially for bass IMO and for crappie you really want to go more vertical such as bamboo stuck in buckets of concrete. Lots of guys will burn the needles off of cedars before they sink them which, may also help with hangups but I've not done that myself. I've made quite a few brush piles over the years and learned some lessons the hard way. If I was going to use cedar I would just weigh it down on the butt by tying blocks to it with ski rope leaving just enough slack to let the current direct it the way it wants to go. I know none of this helps you now but maybe you can pass the info along to the guy that builds them in a subtle kind of way for the future . As far as not hanging up in the current ones; the only ideas I have is to only use dragging type baits (T rigs and C rigs) along the edges by marking with buoys. Fish will often linger just outside the edge of the cover anyway looking for prey. You may also be able to fish it vertically with something slim with insertable type weights or throw suspending type baits or baits you can countdown and try to just come right over the top of the cover.

[fishfarm]

They are a b-tch to fish. You get hung up on the branches in the y spots. Its like getting hung up on a lilly pad at v spot

[JDS723]

I throw a mean mouth magnum shaky head with a 8" bullworm. Comes through heavy brush great

[Philly]

Done well around sunken cedars with a hollow bodied swimbait.

[jigman51]

Sounds like you are doing it right. I use a jig a bunch and have good luck with it.

[Backlash Ar]

Give these a try: http://mpacklures.com/say-goodbye-snags/

[DrewFlu33]

We don't have a lot of brush around here and I haven't got to try my "new" solution to avoiding hangups in a place with a lot of brush, but we do fish a ton of grass. I've recently learned that, as counterintuitive as it may seem, bigger soft plastics will come through weeds without snagging significantly better than smaller ones. This sort of echoes JDS's success with an 8 inch bullworm. Try working an 8 or 10 inch worm through them and see what happens!

[jp71291]

Nutech jig

[kry29]

The lightest bait possible that will allow you to get down there. A lighter bait seems easier to work around the limbs and stuff. A seedless swimbait is a good idea. BUT, getting hung in the forks of the branches is going to happen. Don't go crazy trying to rip the bait out. When you feel it getting hung just stop and move your boat around to the other side and most times it will come loose. The key is working your bait slow and feeling when it's in that "v"

[Panama]

Give these a try: http://mpacklures.com/say-goodbye-snags/

TO EVERYONE...THANKS FOR ALL THE HINTS...

I thought there might be something out there that I had not tried or heard about. People are bringing out new stuff and designs all the time and I tend to fish with what I know and have used in the past successfully.

I get stuck in a rut. I had my first glass bass boat in 1972 and have covered a lot of water over the years.....but you are never too old to ask and learn and try something new.

/\ /\ Mpack jig.....I really like the look of this jig. I wish they made it in a 1/4 ounce. But I think I will order a couple in the smaller size and give them a try. It is an interesting concept and design and might work better than what I have now.