Fished an open tournament Sunday with my son-in-law. Tough day all around. Concentrated on one particular area that offered a lot of lily pads and outlining weeds. Tried a weedless frog and floating worms over the dense lily pads, but nothing would take the offerings. With about 1 hour to go, I decided to try something different. Took my backwards rigged Fat Ika which I was fishing in the outlying weeds, turned the Fat Ika around, buried the hook to make it weedless, and started working it over the lily pads with an erratic retrieve. That was the ticket! Got about 10 takers in that hour. Hooked a couple but unfortunately lost most, and didn't fair too well in tourney thanks to my shortcomings but we should have. I've got to get better with this technique (maybe trying a different style hook, waiting a litter longer before setting the hook, and especially going more than 12 lb test line duh!). One of the fish I missed was a monster, and would have been a new PB. She crushed the Ika about 20 feet away from the boat in the pads, and we got a look at her when she swirled after I set the hook. She went down into the pads and I just couldn't get her out, and eventually broke the line. The Fat Ika is now going to be my goto lily pad lure.

Zel

Try a kreature like that also.  I am tearing then up on a kreature in the grass or weeds

the ika is so commonly fished skirt up, that we sometimes forget it is also killer rigged in the traditional way.  Thanks for the reminder.