How do you fish lakes with with clear water, rocky bottom, and long, submerged aquatic grass with lots of little baitfish inside each submerged clump of grass with patches of gravel on the bottom. The lake has lily pads mixed with other standing grasses with other types of algae/vegetation mixed in. I lost a 4 pounder fishing a Rage craw on a stand up jig head with garlic scent at a tournament at this lake a week or two ago, We managed to catch a 11 1/4 incher on a Strike King poppin' frog and got 1 big bite in the pads with a mouse.

I fish a lot of clear water in PA  crank the drop offs and fish the grass with 5" senko  works for me

Sounds like some of the ponds on Cape Cod.  Long tendrils, some five feet or more, and thick grass, or vegetation about a foot high from the bottom.

Here's what works best for me.  I use a bullet weight with a bobber stop to hold it in place.  For hooks, I use Owner weightless twistlock hooks, but a worm hook would likely work as well.

For bait, I use a baby Rage Tail craw rigged weedlss.  Cast, let it fall to the bottom and mix up the retrieve.  Hop it off the bottom, let it sink again, or jig it with short twitches.  I mix it up until I can determine what the fish prefer.

This rig goes through the thickest of gunk nicely.  You can use anything you'd like for bait, be it a worm, fluke type, etc.

I would use a spinnerbait, buzzer, chatter baits or prop bait to start with. If the bass don't react, then slow down to a frog, weighted fluke, drop shot or Senko. Trying to work a jig with big claws or a T-rig worm with a curl tail tends to get hung up too often for me. The straight or paddle tails worms, brush hogs or beavers get through weeds a little better.

WRB

I think you've given a good description of what you're facing here.

Clear water tells me you should be looking at flourocarbon or light line outside of the slop.

You've got the top two sources of feed in this lake.  Scattered weedbeds with small baitfish which I am assuming are young of the year species, and rocky bottom screams crawdads.  I'd be looking at throwing something to match either.  Clear water is a great place to throw a chrome lipless baits or spinnerbaits.  Ripped out of the weeds they should trigger strikes.  Crawdad colored crankbaits that dig into that rocky bottom, or one of the many soft plastic craws should work as well.

The typical slop lures will work sometimes up in the lily pads.  If a frog isn't getting strikes, you might want to try a longer (10") weightless worm to swim through it.

Personally though, I think I'd be targeting some of those deeper weed/rock areas.  As those young of the year baitfish start to thin out, the fishing should get better on towards fall.  I'd also try to match the size of my lure to the baitfish.

Thanks guys, Where I described was looking out from the end of a small dock I was fishing from. The long aquatic vegetation was matted at the surface. The bait fish I was talking about were what looked like small bluegill mixed in with another species of baitfish. The grass and rock at the end of the dock was at least in 1 to 3 feet of water. Here

is a link to a google maps image of the lake:

http://maps.google.com/maps?rlz=1T4HPIA_enUS310US262&um=1&ie=UTF-8&q=Piney+Run+Park&fb=1&gl=us&hq=Piney+Run+Park&hnear=Aspen+Hill,+MD&cid=0,0,10261187974123995101&ei=1AtzTJeoIsH-8Aao2MnuCw&sa=X&oi=local_result&ct=image&resnum=2&ved=0CBoQnwIwAQ

The Long Tendrils of aquatic grass seemed to go out pretty deep into the lake. Any more ideas? The lake has a lot of small bluegill and small yellow perch. I saw some groups of small bluegill and small yellow perch grouped up together in shallow water where there was no aquatic vegetation but a gravel and dirt bottom by Docks. It seemed like the Big bass, like the one I broke off were deep in the longer grass and the  11 inch and below bass were shallow and scattered.

Youre probably want to get some quality fluoro for that lake. InvisX  8# for spinning and AbrasX 12-15# for casting  8-)

Is P-Line good?

I fish a lot of clear water in PA crank the drop offs and fish the grass with 5" senko works for me

Hey nj? Do you fish the worm wacky, with a finesse gap gammy, or?

Is P-Line good?

which P-line?

P Line CXX is. Cant say I've heard as good reviews about the rest of there products....

Try drop shotting 4" finesse worms in watermelon near cover in 15-20' of water. Killer in clear water with spinning gear and 6# test.

P-Line makes solid lines... I've used Fluroclear, CX, and CXX without any problems, but many people posting here have had bad experiences (yet to come across a line that everyone can agree is the best).

FWIW P-line is better than any Berkley line. But all lines are better then berkely!! ;D

Bobbyc    it depends the thick grass i will tex  if it is more open water wacky