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Posts: 405
| Looking for approaches to fishing a traditional weed flat. It is 4-6' dropping to a 40-60' basin with the weedline at 8-10'. It is approximately half mile long. Assume summertime stable weather, water temp in the 70's. Questions ... at what depth do you run your boat down this flat, what bait will you use and what time of day will you attack it. |
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Posts: 13688
Location: minocqua, wi. | drive your boat and serpentine the outside edge … hitting icons on the exact edge. understand how far you cast relative to your boat position to the icons (weed edge) so … map it before you fish it. now you will see the shape of it and can isolate inside turns or unique features, look for rocks or where coontail changes to cabbage or anything else that might make for a unique holding spot. making accurate casts to the edge should produce for you. depending on how steep and consistent the break is to the basin, your boat will be in a variety of depths. one of the biggest mistakes i've seen/experienced over time is crowding weed edges. if you don't have electronics and only sonar i'd suggest being in 18-25 feet of water approaching a 10' weed edge.
sometimes you can tell by what you see too … if you are getting a lot of late follows you're probably crowding. fish stack up from the edge down and come up to pick up the bait to pick it up. if they don't have time to pick it up you are fishing with them underneath or behind you. pay attention to when a fish is on the bait (right away, mid retrieve or late) and make boat position adjustments based on what you see and don't be afraid to fish the same weed edge twice with a different path.
on a cold front with high skies crawl up into the soup and rip baits right through the trash
Edited by jonnysled 3/29/2014 9:09 AM
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Posts: 397
| It took me a bit but force yourself to fish farther off the break it will make a big difference in the number of fish seen and caught |
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Posts: 243
Location: South Central Wisconsin | That is some very sound advice from these guys. IF you are fishing alone, don't be afraid to run real tight to it casting in front of the boat as well. Try to contact the weeds slightly and rip your baits through it. After contacting and ripping, pause for just a second, and continue. If it's a pressured lake, sometimes the casting angle can make all the difference. This will work with two but, have the person in back cast towards deep open water with a dawg or deep crank, or a topwater right over top of weeds. |
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Posts: 54
Location: Minnesota | This may sound against the grain! Once you find those flats and establish the edges during high sky's slip up onto the flat and give yourself a 1/3 of a cast on the flat to 2/3 into the depths. Locating turns and taller cabbage near the edges also helps. Have found this is where speed kills make your bait act likes its looking for cover. Your also disrupting the bait fish holding in the weeds and pushing them to the edges which may trigger more reactions. I watch so many fishing the outside in and the ones right on the edge not saying its wrong its just the common practice. Giving the fish this look on higher pressured water seems to produce. It also works during post frontal when those fish are cruising the edges. |
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Location: Eastern Ontario | Like the last two posters I like to go right down the edge fishing ahead of me. alternating ahead, into the slop, out deeper till I see what works. I think muskies see fewer lures from the inside out and I sometimes think it would be normal for frightened bait to dart for the weeds. Fish are never all deep or all shallow no more than all people are all at Burger King or all at McDonalds
With two in the boat the guy in the bow would be casting a Suick or spinnerbait ahead and in and the guy in back would be casting a Depthraider out with the occasional cast behind to keep anything pulled out or in unseen honest.
Once you have the weededge mapped out a lot of fish can be put in the boat trolling a spinnerbait down the edge if allowed where your fishing.
Edited by horsehunter 3/29/2014 10:40 AM
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Posts: 409
Location: Almond, WI | Throw a wrench in here. What's your weed type? Fish will show preference at certain times, and different types of weeds fish very differently. Cabbage tends to pocket, coontail will clump, milfoil will make a wall. Concentrating on the borders of weed types (transition from cabbage to coontail) can be very effective. And don't overlook the inside weedline. If it's late summer with cooling nights/warming days very shallow mats of coontail on the inside will attract fish. The outside edge is good, but in my experience if all you do is straight line down it you will miss a lot of fish. |
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Posts: 1082
Location: Aurora | The quiet approach is also something to consider.
Big motor close and drift the bed if conditions allow.
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Posts: 455
| I like to troll the weedline with a hand held rod. Lift up when the weeds come up on the sonar and drop the tip when they drop off. Crankbaits or spinnerbaits. |
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Fishing a weed flat