THICK Lily Pad Bass Fishing?

Question

My home lake, Gibbon's Creek Reservoir close to College Station, Texas, becomes overgrown in many areas with thick lily pads and hydrilla. It is a power plant lake, and summer is my hardest time to fish it because I have no graph to see deep structure. Because of this I have to find structure I can see on the surface. The lily pads seem my best bet. I cant figure out a good method to fish these seemingly inpenetrable lily pads, but I know there are fish in them. What would you recommend, and do you have any other tips for this lake during summer? It only has two docks, and it is characterized by tons of stumps.(I haven't been doing well around them either) By the way its a fairly small 2,500 acre lake if you haven't heard of it.

Answer 1

use a frog lure http://www.basspro.com/webapp/wcs/stores...

Answer 2

Just want to add a couple words.

(Great answer Golden!)

I agree with Golden. "Flip" the pads with a stout rod, Power Pro Braid and an 8-10" Texas Rigged worm! (Make sure to "juice up" the worm with fish attractant.) A Gambler Florida Worm Weight is ideal in this situation; GFWW have a "s***w-in" design that stays on the worm well.

Personally, I've only had luck with "frog" lures in low-light conditions, (which leaves you with 8-10 "sunny" hours to find a productive lure that will work well in bright-@ss sun!  lol ).

Also, Frog lures are deadly after a rain or at the end of a drought period, (in other words- Don't forget to break out the Frog on cloudy, rainy, days).

1 more thing- Skip most of the pads and only flip/cast where the edges of the Lily's intersect with Hydrilla. And where-ever the pads/hydrilla meet your "stumps" should be PRIME Bass habitat!  

Hope this extra tid-bit of answer helps ya? Good fishing!

Answer 3

ui would use a frog lure! but be sure not to make to big of a splash when it hits the water because it could scare the bass away!

Answer 4

Try using the artificial frogs that you can run over the pads and weedless jigs.Perhaps even texas or carolina rigged worms weedless.Even a top water bait that makes a lot of noise might bring them to the surface and make them hit.

Answer 5

Last year I went to reelfoot lake in Tennessee and encountered the same predicament.  After 2 days of trying various techniques, I finally found one that worked.  I took a jig and pig with a stout rod & braided line and dropped my bait at each opening that I saw in the lily pads.  After dropping the bait I would vigorously twitch my bait up and down like crazy from the bottom up 2 inches...twitch, twitch...almost like giving the bug a seizure.  I did this technique in somewhat murky water and used a black skirted jig.  I am not a fan of a jig under any circumstance except for this and heavy timber.  

I tried the frog routine, but it was just a pain the **** because it would keep getting hung up (the line would wrap around some of the lillies).  I only caught a few doing every technique and then I tried this & was boating fish all day long.

By the way, anybody that wants to go fishing there...the place I stayed was cheap and was pretty decent & it included the boat & motor, and some other stuff.  It was www.bluebankresort.com

Answer 6

First off if you have mono on your reels take it off and put one of the braided lines on 30lb at lest.  I prefer power- pro.

Mono will break in Lily pads and Hydrilla where as braided line will cut threw the weeds.

Look for gaps/opening in the weeds, throw past those and retrieve you lure into/ threw those openings.

Next first thing to try is a  one of the plastic frogs. Make sure and wait till you feel the weight of the fish on before setting the hook after you see the strike.

You can also use almost any kind of bait if you run it parallel to the weed line.

Looks for points, pockets in the weed line.

Fish the points of the weed line early or late in the day, fishing the pockets mid day.

Do not be afraid to cast that frog ( or other soft plastic top water) as far back in that mess as you can.

Do not over look a jig, plastic creature bait,,,with the weight pegged, fished in that fish cover either.

Do not fish around any of the plants that look brown or like they are dieing....no bass around dieing plants.

One more thing I hope you have a good stout MH or Hvy rod, preferably over 6'-6"

*Added*

StopMaking - Nicely added details, about thick weed fishing....esspecially the stumps in the weeds.

Between the two of us he should have a pretty good picture of what to do now.....My self I prefer big bulky creature baits over worms, the tail has a tendency to wrap around the weeds...for me anyway.  In case he is wondering, loading up  the bait with a fish attractant helps the bait slide threw the thick stuff.

Answer 7

Try using a Texas Rig, using a purple plastic worm. In cali,(where I live) I have yet to catch anything with a frog. -_-

Answer 8

I have been having good luck in the weeds with a spoon called Johnson's silver minnow.  I fish it with a 4" white grub on the end of the hook.  These spoons are the most weedless lure ever.  You should get a large sized one that can sink down underneath the lily pads.  You can also reel a little faster so that the lure wiggles on or near the surface and snakes its way through the lily pads.  When fishing this spoon keep your rod tip in the up.

Another good lure to try is a plastic snake. The way to fish a snake is to have your rod tip down near the water and pop the snake, letting it sit after a pop or two.  When the fish hits the snake you have to wait a second so it can bite down and suck in the bait, than give it a good yank to secure the hook.  

Good luck

Answer 9

use great big rubber worms and cast them on top of the pads and then crawl it from one pad to the next