Fishing Sea

Fishing The Grass

By Jay Yelas

After the warmth of summer, there’s no doubt that your favorite fishing hole has some vegetation built up in it. In summer, when the water warms, the different aquatic vegetation are able to bloom. And if you are a bass angler, there’s nothing that makes you happier than grass in a fishery.

Grass is important to a fishery for a multitude of reasons. First, young fish (called fry) are able to retreat into the dense aquatic vegetation and escape predation. These fry could be young bass or any other species, but because they are able to get some refuge in the grass, there is more likely to be a better survival rate - meaning more bass or bass forage in the future. Secondly, when there is grass in a fishery, these aquatic plants will provide forage for bait fish like minnows. If there’s a healthy minnow population present, the bass benefit, as well.

As a professional angler, I can tell you that the presence of grass excites me when I get on the water. Mostly, I am excited because I know I can start my fishing efforts around grass; employing techniques that typically do well near this vegetation. There’s no shortage of ways to attack grass in the late summer, but here’s three that are very productive.

If you like to catch largemouth bass, then you’re already acquainted with flipping and pitching. It’s an amazing effective way of getting a bait into a small area, putting it right in the bass’s face and delivering it with accuracy and without disturbing the fish with a big splash. One of the best ways to attack grass is to scope the grass beds through your polarized sunglasses and look for holes in the vegetation.

Once I find such a hole, I like to pitch a Berkley PowerBait Chigger Craw into the hole. Rigged on a 4/0 wide-gap hook with 20-pound Berkley Trilene 100% Fluorocarbon line spooled on an Abu Garcia REVO Premier, I put a Green Pumpkin-colored Chigger Craw in the hole and let it sink. Often, bass will hit these baits on the fall. If not, I drag it through the hole. Pulling bass out of heavy vegetation requires tough line and a rod with a lot of backbone, like my 7-foot-9-inch Fenwick Techna AV Flippin’ Stik.

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