10 hours ago, ol'crickety said:

 

Will do! Two tasks await me:

 

1. Hooking them.

 

2. WRASSLIN' 'EM OUT OF THE WEEDS!!!!!!!!!

I certainly have confidence in you! 

I like to toss sunfish patterned spinnerbaits over submerged weeds. 

On 8/8/2023 at 5:19 PM, JackstrawIII said:

I’d add a Keitech Swing Impact Fat fished on a weighted swimbait hook. Very weedless and can be fished just kissing off the top of the weeds. Killer. 

 

These ride pretty high in the water column at some pretty slow retrieve speeds, just fast enough to get the blade turning. These were my 'holy crap, I had no idea' bait this year. Went through cover surprisingly well. For reference, the one on the right is a 5/0 flashy swimmer and the one the left is an 8/0 flashy swimmer. 

 

The one on the right is a little wonky because I was trying to make it last after it kept getting pounded.

 

The above will work no doubt. The problem is where you fish is a shallow bog lake that we westerners never encounter.

Swimmers look and act like a bait fish and the comes from underneath to strike it and returns instantly. A Weedless surface spoon the bass strikes and jumps to get rid of it. This. Gives you a chance to fight the bass before it dives.

Tom

4 minutes ago, WRB said:

The above will work no doubt. The problem is where you fish is a shallow bog lake that we westerners never encounter.

Swimmers look and act like a bait fish and the comes from underneath to strike it and returns instantly. A Weedless surface spoon the bass strikes and jumps to get rid of it. This. Gives you a chance to fight the bass before it dives.

Tom

 

I'll try the spoon next time, Tom. I've got seven rods already rigged for tomorrow morning, all with suggested lures. I do have a silver spoon or three, but I'll have to go digging for them. 

I had a pretty good morning, but I couldn't get the GOAT to work. It was sub-surface until it was close to my canoe and then it finally surfaced. The main lure was a popper. A T-rigged floating worm garnered some hits, but I set the hook to early to avoid gut-hooking them. Here are few of the 22 bass and the best performing lure:

 

The popper is the best hookup ratio topwater for keeping in place IMHO.  Glad to see it performed well for ya.  Don't give up on the floating worm ?

 

You'll get the timing down on the deal.  You certainly seem to have PLENTY of opportunities to practice every day ☺️☺️☺️

 

I betcha bigger weary old gals who know a treble hook when they see one are the ones slurping your worm.

7 minutes ago, Pat Brown said:

betcha bigger weary old gals who know a treble hook when they see one are the ones slurping your worm.

 

They felt heavy when I laid into them, but I'm thinking that the full worm wasn't even in their mouths and I was only feeling their weight because they'd clamped on the tail end of the worm for a sec or two. 

 

8 minutes ago, Pat Brown said:

'll get the timing down on the deal.

 

I hope so. How long do you wait?

 

9 minutes ago, Pat Brown said:

The popper is the best hookup ratio topwater for keeping in place IMHO.  Glad to see it performed well for ya. 

 

It did well. I caught two on a frog, two on a Whopper Plopper, and 18 on the popper. 

I personally would take a different approach than topwater. I would get a 1/4 oz bullet weight and peg it above a 3 ot VMC Ewg and rig your favorite creature bait on there. I would look for small hole in the grass mat and pitch to them. Try to stay in the hole as long as possible on that retrieve. Never only cast in there once either. Slowly reel it up out of the hole and across the mat then make another pitch doing the same thing. My creature bait of choice would be a Reaction Innovations Sweet Beaver in Calfornia 420 color. Hope this helps.

 

Benjamin

Really surprised the GOAT was subsurface. Has never, ever happened to me.

 

I use a 1/0 EWG in the Baby Goat, a 3/0 EWG for the Goat and a 4/0 for the Billy Goat. And they all float it. I've also used a straight worm hook in either and that floats too.

 

I'm perplexed.