Had a trail tournament on a pond I had never fished yesterday. I didn't have time to go out and pre-fish this week because of work and the 4 liters of fury ate a tree so it was a "just go fishing" kind of day. Started at 7am with 27 boats,it was cloudy, cold, and howling from the north, wonderful...

Buzzed to two rock jetties. Upon further inspection it had a small 6' stream inside it that ran to a small pond. So I fired the buzzbait up the stream and put a small 12 1/4" fish in the boat. We sat there until about 8. Hit 3 more fish all around 1.25 pounds infront of the stream on a jig. Also hit a pike around 15 pounds on the jig.  

The lake was sprayed for weeds about 3 weeks ago so there was NO living veggies, all the grass was black and smelled awful. But we saw 3 boats fishing in an area known for being filled with grass. We stopped and made a few casts with the Aruku Shad, nothing. We also didn't see anyone catch anything so we continued on to a rocky point. This is where the fun begins...

We turned the Side Finder on and would spot a random rock or small rockpile in about 6-8' of water, make a cast to where we thought it would be, and would catch a fish. It honestly felt like cheating, ;D . We probably caught about 14 keepers doing this and a few shorts. Most of which came on either a 2.5" teaser tube (I had custom heads made with Venom Death grip hooks and a 1/4oz ball weight to get down deep or for the wind 8-) ) or on the jig. But we just couldn't get any big fish, our biggest was about 2.5 pounds and we culled out most of the fish we caught in the morning on the jig but only for ounces.

At weigh-in time people were not happy, it seems like almost every boat had 2,3, or 4 fish. We were one of 4 teams to have limit. Our 8 fish went just under 13 pounds, can't complain too much given I had never been there. We finished fifth, behind the 3 boats we saw fishing the dead grass... > :-/

Winning team was throwing light jigs and a tube on a 1/16oz weight in the dead grass, they had 15.8, all quality fish, they didn't have one over 3.5 pounds. Second had 13.8 fishing slim weightless senkos in the grass and a tube on a light weight. Third had only 6 fish for 13 change, and they were also fishing senkos in the dead grass. So now I have questions...

The grass was pretty much on the bottom, clumped up,black and smelled awful. Why were there fish there? I thought dead grass put out carbon dioxide or something else that turned fish away. :-/ And how would you fish it. Seems like they were all using light-weight baits that would sit on-top of the grass then pop the bait out.  :-?  I'm stumped.

Even knowing that all the good weights would come from that area I couldn't do it. These three boats were fishing an area about half the size of a football field and only in about 3-5' of water. I just can't spot sit that long with boats around me.

Pretty sure dead grass won't turn away fish.  I have fished naturally dead grass in the fall and early spring and did very well on it.  Not sure about chemically killed grass though.   What type of grass was it?

Sporatic grass beds are great places to fish weightless sinkos or flukes etc.  If it was thicker I would have chosen to use something more like a tube and try to hit the holes or punch holes in it.  Good job though!

Pretty sure dead grass won't turn away fish. I have fished naturally dead grass in the fall and early spring and did very well on it. Not sure about chemically killed grass though. What type of grass was it?

They use hockey-puck like tablets. Kind of like chlorine tablets you put in your pool. It was coontail with red china weed mixed in. The reason I ask is because it goes against every other lake I have fished that has been chemically treated. Granted you can pick one off here or there. But I really didn't think a lot of quality fish (like I said 1,2,3rd place...22 fish for 41 pounds) would stay in the area, and such a small area at that.

Good job though!

That was all the Hummingbird, not me. ;D

Is it possible that the 3 boats found a few small patches of living grass in practice?

Is it possible that the 3 boats found a few small patches of living grass in practice?

It was all dead (trapped it for about 20 minutes and never pulled up any green grass, it was all dead) and they were all motoring around in that one area. So it wasn't like each was concentrating on a small patch, they were all fan casting. There was a large rock island in the middle that they were all just going around and around.