Weeds are the most common type of cover for bass. Bass fishermen know that if they find weeds they will find fish. Weeds provide oxygen, which attracts small insects and bait fish. The weeds also provide some nice cover to protect them from predators or just shield them from the sun.
Catching bass in the weeds is not that complicated. Covering water with topwater lures, shallow-diving crankbaits, spinnerbaits and swimbaits can help you find some of the better areas to fish. Then, you may want to slow down and fish soft plastics, jigs or even live bait. The 2 things that you need to focus on when fishing weeds are to make sure that your presentation allows you to be as close to the weeds as possible without getting caught on the weeds too much and having heavy enough line to pull big bass away from the weeds quickly.
Submerged Weeds
These weeds grow below the water, although you can sometimes see them come just barely up to the surface. They can grow in water from 5 to 30 feet deep depending on how far down the sun can penetrate. Finding a weed line is important for catching bass. These deep weed lines will usually go around the entire lake at the same depth. If you find fish in 8 feet of water, you’ll probably find fish throughout the entire weed line in 8 feet of water. Soft plastics rigged with weedless hooks will produce lots of bass in submerged weeds. Shallow-running crankbaits are effective if you can keep them just above the weeds. Spinnerbaits and topwater baits are also very effective for fishing submerged weeds. The idea is to keep your bait as close to the weeds without getting caught up.
Emergent Weeds
These weeds are extremely visible. They rise well above the surface and usually are tough to fish. Whether you are fishing lily pads, reeds, rice beds or other types of emergent weeds, you are going to need some heavier tackle to catch bass in these areas. Weedless lures are also key to catching bass around emergent weeds. Jigs flipped into pockets, soft plastics rigged weedless and topwater frogs work greats around the edges, in the pockets or over the thick stuff. In some of the real heavy stuff, you may need a heavy action rod with braided line up to 60 pound test.
Go Weedless
You need to be using weedless presentations. Use your favorite weedless presentation for your soft plastics and you’ll have more success fishing your baits around all types of vegetation.
Fish the Weed Edges
The weed edges can hold a lot of bass. Fish along the weed edge and you’ll get plenty of bites, especially, when there is some decent depth along the weed edges.
Get Out the Frog
Topwater frogs are some of the best baits to fish around the heavy stuff. Get a heavy rod and reel with some heavy line and work the frog over the vegetation.
Topwater Lures Are Awesome Too
Other topwater lures that are retrieved with a twitch and pause retrieve will also help anglers can a bunch of bass too. The pause allows the bass to come out of the heavier vegetation to eat your lure, so make sure to pause long enough for the bass to swim out and get outside the weed edge.
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