I fish mostly in the brainerd lakes region of minnesota. I was wondering if anyone has some helpful tips on fishing heavy weed growth, preferably finesse techniques for fishing in think cabbage. Also, if anyone has some helpful advice on locating bass within 15-25 foot range after the sun comes up, and the water warms during the day would be great. Thanks!

Fish verticle. We do it all the time down here. just move along and drop the lure down each and every opening you come across. If you can't find one make your own with a heavy weight.

fish4$, you make a good suggestion about the verticle fishing!  I love to fish verticle at times, especially when fishing in over 20 ft and thick cover!  Being right over the top of your bait gives you a lot of control, plus it cuts down the length between the fish and the boat, which helps when pulling them in!

Now, I know a thing or to about fishing in heavy cover!  I live in south TX and my two primary lakes are Choke Canyon and Falcon.  I dont know if you know anything about these lakes, so if you dont; take my word when I tell you how much cover these lakes have.

Choke, is covered with thick, thick hydrilla most of the year.  There are patches that are almost like walls ,you would get stuck if you tried to walk through them.  You can break off 2 lb fish on 50 lb braid because they burry down in this stuff.

On the flip side, Falcon has zero hydrilla; however you will be hard pressed to find a lake with more flooded brush.  Almost every square inch of this lake has brush, especialy with the high water levels that have flood many acres of what used to be brush land!  When I fish tourny there I make sure to take plenty of lures of the same color because you break off so much!

So, I think this qualifies me for knowing a thing or two about fishing heavy cover.  Here are some tips:

• in heavy grass, downsize hook siize when
  

    fishing treable hooks. 

• in heavy grass, make plastic 100% weedless
  

    by sticking the exposed hook point back into

   the body of the plastic a small ways!

• in heavy grass, fish low stretch lines to ensure
  

    the hook gets set in all that grass (braid/Flouro)

• grass or brush, get fish out of the cover quick
  

    if you try and play and get too cute you will

   loose many fish, even small ones!

• Check line often for small abrassions
  

  you need your line to perform at its best

• heavy brush, stick with factory hooks instead
  

of changing to super hooks, they are great but will also burry into anything they touch, you will snag and get hung too much!

• For grass, use crankbaits that have deep
  

    thin bodies, they tend to rip out cleaner!  If fishing billed cranks, opt for a square bill; they deflect better than rounded ones!

• Utilize drop shot technique, or C-Rig to
  

    present lures just above the vegation

• Have a game plan for how you are going to
  

    menuever fish out of cover after hooked!

Those are just some basic things, I need to know more about what the areas you fish look like to get specific!

Also, if you want to locate fish in the 15-25 foot range, I would start by idleing through areas and finding depth changes, drop offs, slopes, ledges, points and other irregularities!  These are usually the areas that will hold fish.  Now, if these areas have cover present as well, than even better!

Good baits to locate fish with when fishing in the 15-25 foot range are crankbaits, both lipless and billed!  You can cover lots of water with these baits and locate areas that are holding fish, then you can slow it down and offer other presentations!

Also, if you want to learn the bottom, throw something like a Football Jig, which keeps constant bottom contact.  You can really learn an area by fan casting one of these!

Good Luck!

Maintain contact with your lure at all times, allow the lure to free-fall unrestricted, but without letting slack form in the line; follow your lures down with your rod tip.

Strikes will sometimes so subtle with no line movement that they can go unnoticed if you feel is a spongy sensation, as if the line suddenly got heavy set the hook.

Deep cover requires compact lures which means worms with no ribbon tails that can wrap grass stems. Craw worms or creature baits are excellent choices, for worms use straight tails or paddle tails, for jigs any will work but obviously not football heads (OK of sparse cover). In grass shorter is better than longer, I stay 6 or less.

I have experimented with close to every name brand jig on the market and had success with all of them even Wal/Marts Renegade Jigs. But in my option there are none better than Terry Oldham's Jigs; it comes through the grass cleanly and has the absolute stoutest hook on the market which is an essential for jig fishing.

I play around with many different trailers as well be when there's money on the line it's Gene Larew Salty Hawg Craws all the way; which by the way are killer Texas Rigged as well, again they come through the grass cleanly and are a bulky piece of plastic.

I'm with Catt on the football jig in heavy cover. Too hard to work it through the hydrilla.The Oldhan jig (Non football) will do the job. 1/2oz. up to 1 1/2oz at times to get it down. Straight tail worms and spray them down with an attractant. This will help to move the lure through the grass.

Lipless lures and keep them ticking the grass. When you do get hung rip them free, this will trigger a strike.

I too prefer the Gene Larew trailer for my jigs.

Thanks for the help. It just gets frustrating when all your hoping for is a cast where you dont end up catching on weeds.

As soon as the season opens up here ill be sure to try these tactics out. If anything, thanks for the time!

p.s....... what time, and conditions should i be focused on shallower water? It feels like by mid day the bass are gone from weeds and are hanging, suspended in deeper water. How long should i be focusing on shallow vegetation or cover before i decide to move to the deeper water column? are there even any bass still there? I am refering to post-spawn and summer months when i ask these questions.

There are always a certain set of fish that spend their entire lives in shallow water. conditions will dictate when and where they set up on the grass. It can be up, down, inside grass line, outside grass line, or buried up in the middle. you just have to keep moving and changing lures until you get bit. When you get that first bite, focus on that area. changing up lures and presentations until you find out just what it will take to catch them.

Good luck.

perfect.... thanks again.

p.s....... what time, and conditions should i be focused on shallower water? It feels like by mid day the bass are gone from weeds and are hanging, suspended in deeper water. How long should i be focusing on shallow vegetation or cover before i decide to move to the deeper water column? are there even any bass still there? I am refering to post-spawn and summer months when i ask these questions.

I will tell you what my dad always told me in regards to your comments, " If your not getting hung up, then your not throwing into the right places!"

This is very true, you need to be fishing around the cover, weather grass/brush/reeds/ect. !  However, the hang ups can get frustrating.  This is when lure choics and presentation is crucial.  Fish things that move through cover well, when it gets thick!

For instance, the other day at the Coleto Creek invitational I kept seeing bass busting over this thick shallow grass flat.  I started throwing a 1/2 oz rattle trap into the area, but it was getting hung up too much in the grass.  I soon switched to a 1/2 redeye shad, which has a deeper and thinner profile.  This profile seems to pull through grass much easier and break cleanly away.  I would slowly move this lure along and when I felt grass I would either pause or just rip it out, this is when the strikes would come!

Same thing for fishing brush!  A square billed crankbill seems to deflect off of brush way better than a round one.  As with the grass, you will get your bites after the lure deflects off of a branch or object most of the time!

If worming, present a completly weedles TX rig approach by re-burrying the hook into the body of the bait!  Or go for a presentation that keeps the bait just above the heavy cover, such as a C-Rig with floating plastic, or an elevated Drop Shot rig!

Main thing is to not let heavy cover scare you into not fishing it.  Use it to your advantage by using baits that operate better in it.

Good Luck, youll get the hang of it soon enough!