I have a lake here in Central FL where the bass seem to prefer hanging out in the bulrushes more than any of the other emergent grasses on the lake. I'm guessing this is because they're a little deeper than the maidencaine and sawgrass found elsewhere on the lake. With the heat of summer quickly approaching and everyone and their brother fishing the outer edges of these bulrushes I had thought about a new technique. I was going to use either a heavy swim jig or some form of compact swimming plastic bait with a 1oz tungsten weight and toss it back as far into the middle of the bulrushes as I could get it. The heavy weight would drag the lure down to the bottom and, hopefully, allow me to snake my line down as well. From there I would slowly retrieve the bait allowing it to bump through the reeds and any fish holding in there should react as it passes by.

My thinking is that, with little to no offshore structure, the bass have to go somewhere to hide from the sun's rays. I haven't hit this lake in a long time and I'm already planning on hitting some docks and a brushpile or two that I know about but I wanted to try something out of the box as well. My only concern, besides the obvious issue of extracting a fish from deep within a stand of reeds, is that the water back in there will see little to no current and not hold as much oxygen...thus negating any shade benefit.

Thoughts? Anyone tried something like this before? I suppose I may have been inspired by the recent "tule dipper" article in Bassmaster magazine.

Give it a shot and let us know what happens.

Only one way to find out! Sounds like you better have heavy line.

Pretty much a standard practice for me in the heat of the summer. A booyah swim jigs works but you get hung up a lot. My normal setup is 65 lb braid on a 7-11 swimbait rod. You need the extra height and leverage to get them out. A bobber stop, 1 oz tungsten penetrator weight, 3/0 gamu EWG superline hook and an ugly otter or similar beaver style bait. This is a heavy, yet compact presentation that you can get back in as deep as you dare. If you get a fish hung up in the back, pull your trolling motor, and either push pole or grab a handful of bull rushes and pull your way in. It can be a frustrating technique but the rewards are worth it if you stick to it.

Pretty much a standard practice for me in the heat of the summer. A booyah swim jigs works but you get hung up a lot. My normal setup is 65 lb braid on a 7-11 swimbait rod. You need the extra height and leverage to get them out. A bobber stop, 1 oz tungsten penetrator weight, 3/0 gamu EWG superline hook and an ugly otter or similar beaver style bait. This is a heavy, yet compact presentation that you can get back in as deep as you dare. If you get a fish hung up in the back, pull your trolling motor, and either push pole or grab a handful of bull rushes and pull your way in. It can be a frustrating technique but the rewards are worth it if you stick to it.

Glad to see it's worked for you since I'm sure you've fished the lake in question. My actual setup, besides the swimjig, was going to be a 1oz tungsten weight with a bobber stopper, 6/0 trokar flipping hook and a black/blue flk Pit Boss...fairly close to your suggestion with an 8ft flipping stick. I'm really hoping the swimjig will work since I think I can cover water quicker that way. Getting them out will be fun for sure. I think I'll be alright if I make sure to at least get them to the surface.