So my Dad and i headed out on a lake in my area that is mainly grass and some rock cover as the main structure. We caught one fish flipping the deepest egde of an emergent grassline in about 5 ft of water (Surface temp 50.7) I fished that way for several hours before switching up to throwing a squarebill over the submerged grass, when i would feel the bill get mucked up in the grass I would stop it until i felt it had floated up enough then i would reel back down to the grass, basically rinse and repeat. This provided the biggest fish of the day. (she was just under 5lbs) I didn't quite know if anyone else had ever fished this way.  i have always ran spinner baits or lipless over grass like that so this was kind of unorthodox but it worked so i wont complain.

That's a common way to fish.  It's one of my favorites both early and late season when the grass or weeds have dropped a bit and the bass are on the flats.  Squarebills and jerkbaits in that method caught 90% of my bass last October. 

 

heres pics i forgot to include them lol

That's pretty much THE way to fish crankbaits for me. Unless im in rocky areas where you run it down to bounce off rocks. But I'll usually throw something else on rocky bottoms.

       I also know that if you bounce them off logs and trees, the bass seem to react to the direction change and bite right after hitting them. I think that stopping a bait over the grass line and then starting again triggers the same reaction from the fish.

Start and stop retrieves with crankbaits can work very well. Often you need some change to trigger the strike. The movement after the pause often does that. 

I fish musky like this. Floating cranks with a big lip that protects the hooks allows you to crank into the weeds and let if back out if you don't crank into them too far. Allows you to make sure you are fishing just above the weeds the entire cast and maybe attract some attention when you bump into them.

sounds like you figured out one the many subtle crankbait techniques. 

7 hours ago, Allaroundfishing said:

heres pics i forgot to include them lol

Nice bass!

Tom

As most places I fish have subsurface vegetation, I do the same thing almost every time I throw a crankbait. It requires a little concentration and patience, but very rewarding, as you discovered!

Nice fish!  Bass are in that grass year-round, kiss the top and edges and they'll come chewing!

Around here if the bass are hitting suspended jerkbaits, then starting and stopping a crankbait usually will work.

1 minute ago, Bankbeater said:

Around here if the bass are hitting suspended jerkbaits, then starting and stopping a crankbait usually will work.

I'll git it a shot once the 8+ inches of ice melts away. Thanks.

Way to go figuring out how to catch bass that day .Next time you go, the process starts over .

I caught my largest fish last season throwing a square bill over grass. It usually works but picking grass out of hooks does get annoying.

Sometimes they want it just stopped so it can float out of the grass, but a lot of the time I do better if I snap the bait out of the grass.

17 hours ago, J Francho said:

sounds like you figured out one the many subtle crankbait techniques. 

Yea ive been getting on the whole squarebill trend lately I love fishing laydowns and rocks with them never tried grass till that day. I shoulda figured pausing it just like I would after deflecting off or a log would work too, it was a blast for sure.

 

16 hours ago, MIbassyaker said:

As most places I fish have subsurface vegetation, I do the same thing almost every time I throw a crankbait. It requires a little concentration and patience, but very rewarding, as you discovered!

yes patience was the key, the water temp dropped nearly 3 degrees in the 7 hours we were on the water!!

 

1 hour ago, Bluebasser86 said:

Sometimes they want it just stopped so it can float out of the grass, but a lot of the time I do better if I snap the bait out of the grass.

yes the slower the better it seemed that day, we had dropping water temps and a major cold front sweep through that dropped the surface temp from 50-51 down to 49!

1 hour ago, scaleface said:

Way to go figuring out how to catch bass that day .Next time you go, the process starts over .

yep this weekend I gotta figure out how to put 5 of those chunks in the boat

we had snow today which is gonna drop the surface temp quite a bit from the run off. hoping it doesn't mess up the fishing too much for this tourney.

With many baits, square bills included, contact and deflection, or some other out of the ordinary action is what often draws a bass's attention. 

Just now, J Francho said:

With many baits, square bills included, contact and deflection, or some other out of the ordinary action is what often draws a bass's attention. 

yes I learned my lesson in that fishing the Tar river down in Little Washington. I made a cast at a submerged limb 4 times and on the 4th as soon as I reeled it over the log I killed the bait... Watched a 2lber come up from under the log and inhale the squarebill.