Pictured: Two anglers flip jigs into deep weeds in the middle of the lake. Sometimes you need to brreak away from fishing the shoreline to find the best bite.
Venture past the shallows to target the deep weedlines, where trophy-sized largemouths lurk.
It’s captivating to watch a master craftsman at work. Honed skills, attention to detail and an extensive knowledge of the task at hand combine to give their actions the appearance of effortlessness. At the moment, I’m watching angling artisan “Big” Jim McLaughlin work a deep weedline for largemouth. I’m fishing too, but it’s more of a cover-up to disguise my blatant voyeurism. No doubt McLaughlin is aware he is being watched, but it doesn’t phase him. He has bucketmouths on the brain.
A delicate splash signals the jig’s entry. It sinks. The braided line is a little slack, but that’s to allow the jig to nose-dive into the underwater jungle. The bait lands on bottom, pulling the line taught. McLaughlin palms the reel in one hand, engulfing the compact Shimano Core baitcaster. The rod’s butt is wedged under his arm and locked in position. The man is poised for action.
A few nods of the rod tip cause the jig to wiggle below. I can imagine the silicone skirt swaying seductively, while the trailer’s claws flap tauntingly. The display proves a tipping point for a nearby bass that sucks in the jig.
McLaughlin bends his knees slightly, drops the rod tip and quickly reels in the slack line. Compression. Then everything expands upwards in a powerful, boat-rocking hookset. Seconds later a chunky largemouth finds a new best friend. McLaughlin pops the jig out, and I quickly take a picture before the fish is gently released.
“That was cool. Now it’s your turn,” McLaughlin says with a grin.
“Sounds good to me,” I reply. Seeing the fish snaps me out of my role as watcher and gets me salivating for some hook-setting action of my own.
The next five hours pass quickly as we fish a variety of deep, weed-covered structures like points and offshore humps. Occasionally, a hush falls in the boat when McLaughlin gets in “the zone.” This silence is soon interrupted by the commotion of another bucketmouth being craned onboard and the chuckle of a pro angler enjoying another day at the office.
A Love Affair with Deep Weeds
Deep weedlines are prime habitat to largemouth for many reasons. For starters, plant cover offers fish protection. Although sizeable largies rank high on the food chain, weeds provide shelter and a sense of security, and depth only enhances this appeal to bass.
The greenery also allows largemouth to hide in wait for their prey, and there’s lots of snacks in healthy weedbeds. Deep-weedline bass aren’t exclusively ambush hunters though. It’s common for isolated fish or small groups of bruiser bass to patrol weed edges chasing forage. A baitfish that accidentally zigs out to deep water instead of zagging into the protection of the plants quickly becomes dinner for an edgy bass.
“Big fish like deep water” was something McLaughlin said to me several years ago. Truth be told, the first time I heard him say this was while we were ice fishing for bluegills, but the mantra has come up in the boat on many occasions. Even when folks are hauling in skinny-water fish, don’t discount that there will always be a population of largies living deep as well. Undoubtedly, this relates back to habitat and a combination of factors like food, security, shade, and so on.
Fishing pressure and boat traffic might also cause largemouths to stick to deep water. A big fish can only get stung so many times in the shallows before it moves. I believe some bass will seek out deeper pastures after being released. When fishing a busy lake, I often concentrate on deep weedlines. I won’t rule out shallow water, but if I can’t put a bite together quickly, I’ll move deep to look for less pressured, more cooperative fish.
Cold fronts reveal another advantage of deep vegetation. Significant fronts can shut down shallow-water bass and, in some cases, can cause them to leave and move toward mid-depth flats or deep weedlines. Fish hanging out in double-digit depths are less affected by fronts.
A final note regarding the benefits of fishing deep weedlines relates to autumn. During fall, the underwater environment changes significantly. Shallow weeds die off and begin to decompose, a process that uses up oxygen. At the same time, surface water temperatures decrease. These two factors cause many species of fish to vacate shallow zones and move to lush, deep plants. The reduction in habitat and associated migration both constricts and concentrates predators and prey. As a result, finding deep, green weeds in autumn can produce some incredible fishing.
Finding the Best Weeds: The Big Picture
Unfortunately, not every patch of deep weeds will produce bass. You have to find the best spots to get rewarded. Start your search by looking at a map and locating drop-off contour lines around 8 to 12 feet deep. This is a common depth range for most deep-weed edges. There’s a bit of play on either side of this figure depending on water clarity, which impacts the depth of water sunlight can penetrate and thus influences the maximum depth weeds can grow. Clear water means deeper weed edges and the opposite is true in muddy conditions.
On the water, concentrate on finding sections of weedlines that are full of the best habitat features. A critical step is locating the most vibrant and healthy weeds in an area. Lush plants attract baitfish, crayfish and panfish. Largemouth will follow. Polarized glasses will help you cut through the glare to see below the water and determine the quality of the vegetation. Another option is snagging a stalk with a lure and then examining the sample.
Next, look for size. Beds don’t need to be enormous, but the larger they are, the more food they’ll hold and, in turn, the more appealing they’ll be to a big bucketmouth. A sizeable weedbed is also more likely to overlap other fish-attracting features, like a rockpile, that will hold fish. Zeroing in on these spots-within-spots in large weedbed complexes is paramount to finding big bass.
Honing In On Sweet Spots
Once you locate healthy, good-looking weeds, it’s time to start eliminating unproductive water and finding the prime real estate. Largemouths will prefer certain areas on deep weedlines to others.
Spots where cover and structure meet will regularly hold bass. For example, places where plants intersect an underwater point are always good because it’s a route for a fish’s movements from deep to shallow water. Add some healthy weeds, and the structure’s bass-appeal quadruples. Islands are also worth visiting, as they’re usually rimmed with weeds. Look for extensions off islands like a point or a connected hump, as these deep secondary spots often hold hawgs.
Other important zones are the pockets and cuts created along a weedline where its growth is interrupted by objects like boulders, rip-rap, stumps or sunken logs. In addition to rocks and wood, look for inside and outside turns. On long-running weedbeds, a bend is a diamond in the rough. Bends are attractive to largemouth as they provide the shortest route between the weeds and the security of deeper water.
A bar is another weedline hotspot. These features are best described as elongated underwater points extending off an outside bend. Be on the lookout for bars, as they can hold a surprising numbers of big fish.
Scouting Sonar Tips
When fishing largemouth along weed edges, the main strategy is positioning your bait along the outside edge, or just inside the vegetative boarder. For this reason, it’s wise to learn and record the layout of the best areas so you can fish them effectively. A GPS/sonar unit is an indispensable tool for this. Store the edge’s location using a breadcrumb trail of waypoints along the weedline’s contour.
It is worth noting that a sonar unit with a side-image functions particularly well for examining weed edges. The technology reveals plenty of sweet spots, like sunken trees, rockpiles and cuts in weeds that you can’t see with a regular straight-down sonar view. Surveying weeds with electronics might seem time consuming, but in the long run it’ll reveal a variety of first-class largemouth spots and allow you to return to them with ease.
How Largemouths Relate To Deep Weedlines
The mood of fish has a lot to do with where they position themselves on weedlines. Active fish often station near deep water, relating to outside bends, bars or weed points. Inactive fish are more likely to be found on inside turns or buried deep in the weeds. In general too, active fish often sit higher in the water column, while inactive ones hold closer to bottom and tighter to weeds. Keep in mind though that the biggest bass have their pick of the best places on a weedline. Giants will lounge in 5-star spots featuring excellent cover and easy access to food, regardless of their mood.
Top Lures and Tactics
A variety of lures can be used to effectively fish deep weedlines. When working a weedline and trying to pattern bass, I divide the area into three fishable sections of the water column. The first is the space above the weed tops to the water’s surface. The second area is the outside edge of the weeds from top to bottom. The final zone is from the outside of the weed edge inward a few feet, with a specific focus on bottom. Let’s look at these zones individually with details on baits to fish them.
Up High
In low-light, cloudy or wavy conditions, largemouths will often hold closer to the canopy of the weeds and near the greenery’s outside edge. In these situations, search baits will take plenty of fish. Topwaters are excellent choices for casting behind or along the weedline and then working over the edge toward deeper water.
Spinnerbaits are well suited for fishing edges because of their versatility and weed-resistant qualities. I particularly like fishing one just above the weed tops so the bait occasionally ticks the top of the stalks. This tactic gets the attention of largemouths on the prowl. Carry different weights of lures and blade styles so you can experiment with a range of speeds.
Crankbaits are also well-matched for flirting with a weed edge. Use shallow to medium-running lures or lipless models to work the upper zone. Again, focus on presenting these baits near the tops of the weeds.
In dense weeds, casting a lipless crankbait just inside a weed edge and letting it sink onto the top of plants can be a dynamite tactic. Once it lands, immediately rip it free, then let it free-fall alongside the weed edge. This commotion evokes reaction strikes from big bass.
On the Side
Working a weedline from top to bottom can be accomplished with many baits. Casting along a uniform weed wall with horizontal presentations such as crankbaits or sprinnerbaits is highly effective. Experiment with a varied retrieve to boost your chances at getting bites.
A soft-plastic swimbait is also particularly good at hauling bucketmouths out from irregular weed edges. The paddletail’s low-frequency thump and wiggling action really appeals to a bass’s appetite. Texas rigging the soft-plastic lets you maneuver it in and out of intermittent weed growth with minimal snags.
One bait that’s always tied on one of my rods during a weedline outing is a soft-plastic stickbait, like a Senko. Fishing these finesse baits in deep water demands patience, but the payoff is worth it in my eyes. Texas- or wacky-rig the plastic and then cast it on top of the edge. Once it touches the weeds, either let it sink to bottom if it can penetrate the canopy, or pull it forward and allow it to drop along the weedwall.
Another method for uniform weedlines is using long casts to position a stickbait along the outside weed edge. This is an effective way to finesse bites from skittish bass in clear water. To reduce hang-ups when wacky-rigging these baits, use a hook with a weed guard, like Owner’s Weedless Wacky Worm Hook.
Down Low
Sometimes bass are “belly to bottom” and the only way to get a bite is by putting a bait on the floor. Bass jigs, when paired with a trailer, are big-fish baits designed for this scenario. Their weedguard lets you work the bottom or dissect a weed edge with few hang-ups. Their skirted body combined with a plastic or pork trailer gives these jigs a burly profile that’ll get a largemouth’s stomach gurgling.
It’s helpful to experiment with the presentation of jigs. Sometimes a fall-and-pause retreive will prove the most successful. On other days, hopping or crawling baits along the weed edge elicits more strikes. Opt for heavy baits to rapidly get to the bottom and to penetrate thick vegetation. I prefer jigs in the 3/4- to 1-ounce range and with a recessed hook eye to minimize hang-ups on weeds.
Bass-style jigs aren’t the only bait you can pitch around weed edges. Big plastics, like bulky tubes and creature baits between 5 and 6 inches long also work well. For best results, rig them weedless on a worm hook or a jig with a keeper-type option, such as a Fin-tech Title Shot jig.
A plastic’s profile will affect its action and sinking speed. For example, a tube or a wide creature bait (like a Reaction Innovation’s Sweet Beaver) will spiral or sway on the fall if not rigged a weight that is too heavy. This arching drop mimics a dying or wounded baitfish, and it’s tough for a largie to ignore. These baits shine along irregular and sparse weed edges.
Another presentation that’s often overlooked by anglers is a bucktail jig. I stumbled on the efficiency of this tactic a long time ago after catching several incidental largemouths while rip-jigging for weed-living walleye. The tactic is straightforward: Cast a bucktail jig along a weed edge and into cuts and pockets and when the bait touches down or snags on a weed, snap it free, then let it fall and repeat. It’s similar to what I described above for a lipless crankbait, but a single-hook bucktail can get to bottom and slip through vegetation, while a treble-clad crank can’t. You don’t always have to work these jigs aggressively though. Hopping them beside bottom along a weed edge will catch plenty of bass as well.
Weedline Wrestling Gear
When plying plants for largemouths, you don’t want to be underpowered. A big bass can quickly wrap the line around stalks and shake free. Even an average-sized fish can get off if given half a chance.
A medium-heavy to heavy-powered rod is necessary to quickly muscle bass out of weeds and into open water. A baitcasting rod starting at 7 feet is also recommended, but don’t be afraid to go longer, as the added length delivers more fish-fighting leverage. Spool reels with between 12 and 20-pound abrasion-resistant monofilament or fluorocarbon. Braided line between 30 and 50-pound-test is also advantageous because it’s no-stretch property makes it ideal for plucking bass out of heavy cover.
Very informative . Well written !