Grass Panic!

[dowhatta]

Alright guys,
The grass on lakes like Ouachita and Degray have me thouroughly whipped! I just can't seem to figure out how to put a fish in the boat once the fish pull away from shallow spawning areas. It seems like most of the grass I see is coontail and hydrilla out to about 20 feet deep. Most of the grass gets as high as 3 feet from the surface, but doesn't really top out. Can someone point me in the right direction for techniques they use through the year?
I've been killing the pickeral, but that's all I can seem to pull from the deep weeds.

[R.D.]

Swim Jig.......absolute the best utility for the grass.....get one with a stiff enough weed guard and work outside edges and bends....if not getting bite try using a heavier jigs around 1/2oz-3/4oz to punch through it and work it it back along bottom.

Another way is to use heavily weighted T-rig worm of any kind....work it slowly throung bottom of weed line and if you can(obvious if weeds are 3 ft down in 20' is hard to do)......keep the line under water to avoid collecting surface crap.....sometimes depending on desity the weeds will spread out no the surface and you can work it through better if line is below them...........Oh and m,ake sure you use braid......it will help cut through better on hok-ups and have better holding power when backed with a good Heavy to XH rod.

Other than this you can try a few other things like spinners over the tops in deeper water or verticall jiging if in 20' of water....maybe a grug work very slow through weeds on braided line too.

just some thoughts

[Bassin Billy]

I fish a weightless trick worm with a #8 swivel 8 inches above for weight. This will get it down enough to tickle the grass. I also use a shallow shad rap or #5 regular shad rap to crank over the grass. Remember when cranking to crank slowly as to not get in the grass. You will be surprised what you can catch as long as there is at least 3' of depth!

[Ouachita]

I mostly fish Ouachita and have thge weeds figured out. If fishing IN the weeds, flip to open pockets, or use a 1-1.5 oz grass jig with a plastic trailer without legs that tangle in the stems, slammed through the slop to bottom. The best target there is where a ditch comes off shore and runs under the weeds. Use minimum 35# braid and a heavy stick. Chain pickerel love messing around IN the weeds and anywhere else shallow, so look for deeper water.

To get away from them and get more into the bass look for close by deep escape routes next to a deep outside weedline. The key there is to find points and dips in the weeds indicating structure forcing the weeds to grow that way. Ignore long spans of straight featureless weed lines. Use your confidence lures and match them to depth, mood of fish, and size of whatever they appear to be feeding on. Fish them parallel to the weedline at various depths and speeds, but also try angles from out i the lake, like 45 degrees.

Since the water is usually ultra clear around the weeds in those lakes I opt for natural colors of soft plastics like watermelon seed, and shad colors for crankbaits/jerkbaits. The best colors are almost invisible under water, blending in. Bass feel them vibrate and see their motion. In low light I use darker colors like plum apple in worms.

Whanever you find a patch of hydrilla that has lots of variety, like a piece of brush sticking up, lots of cuts into the field, long points of it, mine it. Don't skip a foot of it. Finding a lone patch out away from a field is holy grail. Try a buzzbait there several passes.

Jim

[dowhatta]

Ouachita,

I have one very BIG question for you. How deep is deep at Ouachita? I fished with another guy out there a couple of weeks ago and he was sitting in 70, casting up to 20. We didn't have much luck (one bass), but he was suprememely confident in fishing that deep. I don't think my lures ever even touched the bottom.

[Ouachita]

I fish as deep as the bass are, the deepest about 55 feet in winter. I've found schools suspended 10-30 feet down over 120'. At the mouth of Pollard Creek there are some 90' tall submerged trees and bass, crappie, baitfish suspend in them down to 40-50' in winter. Mid lake open water humps topping out 30-40' down hold winter bass. The humps often sit on 80-100' bottoms.

Those suspended bass are finicky. I use spoons, spinnerjigs like Blakemore's Roadrunner Bucktails in 1/2 & 1 oz, and drop shot finesse worms. You have to keep those in their faces.

Jim