"J.P." long_jp(at)yahoo(dot)com wrote in message
...
The small pond I fish the majority of time has a history of being heavily
vegetated. I had an opportunity to fish for a couple of hours yesterday
afternoon and noticed that, with the exception of a few pockets of open
water here and there, the lake is nearly completely covered with milfoil.

***Milfoil can be a double edged sword. While it does offer excellent
cover, it can take over a lake, like you've discovered.


Overall I had an excellent afternoon of bassin'. Landed a couple of 1.5
lb
LMs and a 2 lb momma that was full of eggs and probably ready to bed. (I
know that probably doesn't sound like much to you guys but considering
that
I haven't gotten out as much as I'd like due to the strange Spring we've
had
in WI and the fact that the pond doesn't hold a lot of big fish I was
feeling pretty good about it!)

***It really has been a strange spring hasn't it? One day it's in the 80's,
the next day it's down in the 40's. The poor fish in my neck of the woods
don't know what in the heck to do.


My typical presentation to combat the thick vegetation is a t-rigged 5"
senko on a 3/0 offset worm hook with a piece of splitshot utilized at
times
for weed penetration purposes. I feel like it is a pretty decent
presentation although it does seem the splitshot is a double-edged sword.
Sure you get a little more penetration BUT you also have something else
the
weeds can grab on to.

***Try a bullet weight pegged from the back side. It will reduce the amount
of weeds catching on the weight.


Anyways, after thoroughly fishing the shores I had access to and whatever
openings in the weed beds I could locate, I started tossing out to the
middle of the pond where vegetation was heaviest. From the maps I've seen
of the lake it appears that there is a slightly deeper flat running down
the
middle of the pond and I believe that the bass stage there pre-spawn
before
moving to the shallower flats near the bank to bed down. In the course of
about 20 minutes I had received two MONSTROUS hits each time setting the
hook with a nice smooth dip n' rip of the rod tip only to promptly lose
each
fish as they balled themselves up in the thick vegetation. I'm curious
what
I can do differently technique or presentation wise to minimize these sort
of occurrences. My first thought was changing my line from mono to
supermono thinking that besides the increased durability the supermono
might
cut through the weeds a little more effectively. Aside from that thought,
I
have no ideas of how to attack this problem.

***You don't say what type of tackle you're using. When fishing slop like
you describe, you need to go heavy on your tackle. A heavy baitcasting rod,
or flippin stick is what I would be using under these circumstances, coupled
with 30 to 50 pound PowerPro line. I know it's not very sporting to use a
7'6" flippin stick on 1 to 3 pound bass, but that's the only way you're
going to get them out of the milfoil.

You have to hammer them on the hookset, get their head turned in your
direction and be able to keep them up on the surface if you intend to land
these fish.

So JP, you coming to the Northwoods Classic in Rhinelander this fall?
--
Steve @ OutdoorFrontiers
http://www.outdoorfrontiers.com
G & S Guide Service and Custom Rods
http://www.herefishyfishy.com