I am relatively new to bass fishing and still trying to learn a lot of what I don't know. I am in Central Ohio and generally speaking the lakes around here are chocolate milk and are extremely woody, and not dense in vegetation. I meet my old man in the finger lakes and in Canada (glacial lakes), which have minimal structure (comparatively) and a ton of weeds. I fished Conesus Lake over the weekend and couldn't crack the code. They weren't really sitting on docks (not that skipping is a particular strong suit of mine) and the weed edges were incredibly thick hydrilla, some patches with snotgrass mixed in, others without.

 

The grass was about 8-12" from the top of surface and fishing a bladed jig through it was extremely difficult because it would get hung regularly. Any sort of finesse presentation would as well. I tried fishing a 1/2 oz jig through it, but didn't truly commit to it long enough. It was also very windy, so visually trying to see holes or changes was difficult. Also tried a fluke over the top, but not sure that was the right idea because if they get it on the "pause", the 2-3 seconds was enough time for it to get deep in as well.

 

I tried flipping a 3/16oz creature bait as well (and this is a "me" problem), but I really struggle to flip lighter lures without backlashing.

 

Does anyone have any recommendations they can share on how I can be more effective? 

 

 

This might help!

 

 

On my water, I have my most success on the deep water edges and/or transitions to other vegetation.  Since the weeds are everywhere from 0-18' fow, it's the structure breaks and bottom composition changes underneath that seem to concentrate the bass and the weeds provide the cover.  Docks aren't great for me either, mostly they don't sit over deep enough water and flukes seem to be best before the growth tops out. 

 

In the 8-15' fow is where I do most of my damage.  A 3/4oz swim jig swam straight thru the junk is kinda like a horizontal punching that works for me, same as easing a grass jig thru on the bottom.  Working a 10" straight tail worm on a pretty light t-rig will get through that and most definitely catch.  This last one I'm starting to keep tied on more often, a jigworm.  A 1/16-1/10oz #1 hook ballhead with a 4-6" straight tail or spade tail worm works mid to bottom column surprisingly well.  It will get hung up, but light shakes to a quick pop seems to really get their attention and get lots of bites. 

 

scott

There are a number of presentations you can use for targeting submerged weed tops, but for windy conditions I'd be using a buzzbait, spinnerbait, lipless crank, or a topwater like a Lucky 13. A lipless that occasionally catches the tops of the weeds and ripped free can trigger some bone jarring strikes. With the likelyhood that once hooked, the fish will dive into the weeds, braid will help you get them up and out of it. 

If they won't come up, I'd go with a heavy jig or a punch rig, my choice, using something like a beaver for a trailer.

We ran into this situation last year except the hydrilla was up close to the surface. We were catching bass that day throwing a weedless wacky worm. The worm would pretty much stay on top the grass and the bass would ambush the bait. It was fun that day.

7 hours ago, softwateronly said:

On my water, I have my most success on the deep water edges and/or transitions to other vegetation.  Since the weeds are everywhere from 0-18' fow, it's the structure breaks and bottom composition changes underneath that seem to concentrate the bass and the weeds provide the cover.  Docks aren't great for me either, mostly they don't sit over deep enough water and flukes seem to be best before the growth tops out. 

 

In the 8-15' fow is where I do most of my damage.  A 3/4oz swim jig swam straight thru the junk is kinda like a horizontal punching that works for me, same as easing a grass jig thru on the bottom.  Working a 10" straight tail worm on a pretty light t-rig will get through that and most definitely catch.  This last one I'm starting to keep tied on more often, a jigworm.  A 1/16-1/10oz #1 hook ballhead with a 4-6" straight tail or spade tail worm works mid to bottom column surprisingly well.  It will get hung up, but light shakes to a quick pop seems to really get their attention and get lots of bites. 

 

scott

excellent advice.

8 hours ago, papajoe222 said:

There are a number of presentations you can use for targeting submerged weed tops, but for windy conditions I'd be using a buzzbait, spinnerbait, lipless crank, or a topwater like a Lucky 13. A lipless that occasionally catches the tops of the weeds and ripped free can trigger some bone jarring strikes. With the likelyhood that once hooked, the fish will dive into the weeds, braid will help you get them up and out of it. 

If they won't come up, I'd go with a heavy jig or a punch rig, my choice, using something like a beaver for a trailer.

Ditto

 

Keep in mind sometimes the water on top will just be a dead zone as big Mama is hanging just below the hydrilla which means you’ll just have to get through it to get to her. 
 

 

 

 

 

 

Mike

Hydrilla forms a thick canopy as you probably well know, under the surface though it opens up big time. Therefore punch thru it and catch fish. Stout rods, heavy rated line types are needed and horse them out. Focus on openings in hydrilla matts, circular in size. Hydrilla is both a good thing and a bad thing.. but it’s long been my favorite bass fishing tactic. 

Hydrilla is fun because it's clean.

 

I like to punch down into it or fish over it most of the time.

 

For penetration nothin beats a punch rig.

 

For over the top I like weightless worms and frogs.

With a rake.  On day one just drag a rake through it a bunch.  Then on day 2 enjoy the new casting lanes!

 

 

 

Guys actually do that in europe for carp and coarse fishing in places where the lakes aren't managed or where you can't control what peg (locked location) you are fishing from.  You'd clear out a 10x10' patch down to the sand or gravel so that there is a clean bottom for the fish to graze on and you load up the hard bottom with 'chum' of one type or another.    Just a fun aside that your post reminded me of.

 

 

In all seriousness, I feel your problem.  I grew up fishing western PA with similar conditions- usually stained water, more wood than vegetation, etc.  Moving to NJ was a big swap- 5-10' visibility most of the year or more, deep vegetation, much higher angler pressure.  Lots of videos and threads here on BR (a couple by me even).  The short answer is that you either have to fish on top of it, on the edge of it, or down into it. 

 

If you have 6" or more of water on top of it, buzzbaits, walking baits, ploppers, toads, swim jigs, spinnerbaits, flukes, and even vibrating jigs will work.  But only if they are looking up.  With that type of clarity you're only going to get that in the lower light times of day or heavy cloud days I find. I love throwing a wake bait or a big single colorado spinnerbait (and waking it) in that shallow of water, but it doesn't always work.  Look at the second picture below for pondweed that is nearly topped out (this was APRIL!) and hard to fish anything moving through it, but on top it was no issue.

 

On the edges they will need to be in a chasing mood but you have more water depth to play with.  In one of the screen shots below you can see the water depth at 22' still has grass growing up off the bottom.  At that depth you can see that it is 6' off the bottom until you get up around 10 FOW when it is solid from the bottom to the top (that's not shown on this shot).  That means in the 10-22 FOW range you have 0-15' of water to fish things in without being in the grass and then another 6' of grass to work with.  Bass will root down into that bottom grass but they will also stay up on top of it.  And they will be more likely to shoot out of 6' of grass from 22 to 16' deep than they will from 6' to 0' I find.  So in that scenario, fishing moving baits that skim the top of the deep grass is a good choice.

 

Or you can punch into it.  This is slower for covering water so you should have some inkling that the fish area there in the first place.  If you're on huge mats of weed like the pondweed below, you're going to spend a lot of time throwing at empty water.  Try to find smaller areas where the fish should be (consider the bottom underneath the grass) and focus on those.  I lean texas rig because it comes through easier and there is less time spend cleaning weeds off your weed guard.

 

 

Thanks for the feedback everyone. Several things to try next time. 

This is kind of a giant wall of text, but maybe helpful. 

 

Also a Keitech Fat Swing Impact on an owner flashy swimmer, or a floating/suspending rattletrap might do something for you. And those are pretty easy to try out. 

Not trying to resurrect old threads, but this was my hydrilla this am at Guntersville. I pulled one up through this stuff. I thought I’d hooked a shark. My grass piece ate through that hydrilla like it wasn’t even there…

our hydrilla is covered in that snooty moss stuff.  

 

 

Swimjig! Man, it can be so much fun when that bite is on. When the swimjig bite isn't being very productive, a big long t-rigged ribbon-tail worm with a very light weight, 1/10oz-1/4oz and fish it sloowwwwwww. It's a very light rig, usually 8-12lb test, therefore, I am not throwing it into the grass. I'm targeting the edges, or slowly swimming it over submerged grass. 

On 6/23/2025 at 3:33 PM, Camelback said:

I tried flipping a 3/16oz creature bait as well

 

Try using a 3/4oz (or heavier) tungsten sinker. The bait has to be heavy enough to sink through that thick mat. Obviously, you need a stout enough rod, line, and hook for fishing like this. 

 

You can also fish over the top of them. Frogs and buzzbaits are a favorite of mine. Again, you need a heavy enough rod to handle a fish thats going to get wrapped up in weeds during the fight. 

Unless it really thins out with open holes, I wouldn’t waste my time fishing on top of that stuff. 
She has to come up through all that just to find what’s making all the fuss let alone finding it and decide to hit or not. 
 

I’m going down where she’s at and invade her space. 
 

 

 

 

 

 

Mike