Floating and submerged grass in silty brackish waters

Somebody please tell me what the hell bait is fish able in floating and submerged grass in brackish areas! Such a pita but it's everywhere I fish this year. The bottom is muck so even the submerged grass loses hold when it's tugged on by most baits. Closest I've come to working bait is a frog but it still makes a mess. Thinking of concentrating mainly on the submerged that tops out around 1-2 ft down, but with what? I've had enough minimal success (frog and spook) in short order to know the fish are there. If I knew a way to fish it, I'd be set for a ton of areas. Grass also seems full of bait that gar are imprisoning there while they patrol the edges eating a lot of what they find, including sinking frogs...

How about a weedless spoon?

A Bang-O-Lure caught a lot of fish for me in brackish water similar to what you are describing.

I'll give both a try. Now I just need to figure out the stuff that comes to the top, a few of the better places are completely covered top to bottom with grass. It doesn't matt, or hold. Best baits used so far in this have been floating worms and senkos and shaky head, but none are ideal. The worms work, but the holes big enough to let them do their work are very few and far between. The shaky head is slim to get in the smaller holes but the line itself causes just as many problems with catching grass as does the bait once it is on the bottom and must be retrieved. Is there any sort of very lightweight topwater bait with no exposed hooks that floats when paused? Maybe that would work.

btw, good call on bang o lure, been good around here for years in these spots, just got out of habit and forgot about them for a while. Thanks.

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Originally Posted by jab0106

I'll give both a try. Now I just need to figure out the stuff that comes to the top, a few of the better places are completely covered top to bottom with grass. It doesn't matt, or hold. Best baits used so far in this have been floating worms and senkos and shaky head, but none are ideal. The worms work, but the holes big enough to let them do their work are very few and far between. The shaky head is slim to get in the smaller holes but the line itself causes just as many problems with catching grass as does the bait once it is on the bottom and must be retrieved. Is there any sort of very lightweight topwater bait with no exposed hooks that floats when paused? Maybe that would work.

btw, good call on bang o lure, been good around here for years in these spots, just got out of habit and forgot about them for a while. Thanks.

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Sounds like you also need a frog to fish over the grass. Have you also tried flipping the grass using braided line?

All the frogs I've tried are too heavy or sit too low in the water and just drag a lot of grass in. Haven't tried flipping, but I'd have to clean the bait every cast that didn't produce a strike on the initial fall. I'm game for trying though. Fwiw, all the baits mentioned with trebles I can only fish on the extreme edges or where the grass gets into deeper water, but they do work a bit there. There just seems to be a much higher concentration of fish deep in the grass flats. Might just need a day when they pull to the outside edge.

I used to have a lot of success with weightless senkos when I lived on the coast, particularly on an out going tide. Purple and black snaglesss Sally with double white curl tail grub too....i.e. blue crab.

How about a tube, seems like it should do a good job slipping into the grass without hanging up.

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Originally Posted by jab0106

Is there any sort of very lightweight topwater bait with no exposed hooks that floats when paused? Maybe that would work.

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I think you just described a fluke. Regular (like Zoom) flukes do sink slowly when paused, but the 3X or Elaztech flukes float at rest or at least sink very very slowly.

how about the money hound by yum?

I do think the money hound is the ideal bait here, but I could never get the hookups like I needed in the past. This was with no mods, maybe I need to cut the body slot a bit to ease the hook sets and try again. This would still leave me scratching my head for days topwater doesn't work, but I think if it works at all it'd work most all the time..as these places get totally ignored by most boats due to the nuisance.