Trolling Toothies in the Weeds by Colby Simms 8-11-2011

TROLLING TOOTHIES IN THE WEEDS

Vegetation Holds Muskies and Pike for Much of the Season

By: Colby Simms with Ray Simms & Andrew Veach

Photos by: Simms Outdoors Photography

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    Fish with teeth love aquatic vegetation. In waters where it’s available, muskies and pike will use all kinds of weeds and grasses for holding and hunting. These supreme predators stalk baitfish in these under water jungles like a tiger stalks deer in the forests it calls home.

*Trolling & Other Methods

Casting is often the preferred method for fishing weeds and grass for big game species, but trolling tactics can and do work on many bodies of water. We love to cast, and will do it whenever possible. On some waters, fish don’t show a big preference in the way that lures are presented, and casting, trolling and even jigging tactics can work equally well. However, there are those few lakes and rivers where one method almost always out produces everything else, and there are some waters where trolling methods produce far more fish.

*Weed Trolling Tactics

There are two premier methods for trolling up muskies and pike from vegetation, trolling edges, and trolling flats. Muskies and pike can be lying in ambush in the weeds and grasses, waiting for prey to haphazardly amble by. They can be cruising around through the cover itself, actively hunting, or they can simply be resting and holding in the shade of the cover digesting a meal. Regardless, if the right lure is presented in the right way, they will often pounce. If an angler can effectively motor the boat along a weed edge, that is one of the most efficient ways of plucking active fish from the cover, as fish often concentrate around edges. On the other hand, when fish are spread out across large expanses, trolling back and forth across structures like flats and shelves can be dynamite when they are covered in weeds and grass.

*Making It Easier

Survey, survey, survey the weeds. Too many anglers make the mistake of getting on a body of water they don’t know well and simply putting out the lures and going. This can be an effective way to learn a new area, but it can be a tough and frustrating waste of time when weeds or grass dominate. Without knowing where to troll and how to go about it, you’re likely to end up with a bunch of fouled lures when you run into shallow vegetation. Before you get to the water, find out what types of vegetation are present and which are dominant. Use a map to choose spots to target in each section you intend to fish. Look closely at the contour lines and try to determine your trolling pass paths.

Once on the water, drive to these areas and cruise through them quickly, looking at and into the water and survey the weed growth to determine where and how to fish. Choose flats where the weeds don’t grow to the surface. The best are the ones where the grass is fairly uniform, so you can place lures at the right depth and go. Straight weed edges are easier to navigate and can often hold fish. Still, irregular banks and break lines with lots of points and inside turns often hold larger fish, and the same can be true of flats with irregular weed growth. While these areas can be more difficult to fish, the effort can be worth it. Carefully surveying these areas can make the task much easier. Make sure to use a long billed cap and quality polarized sunglasses designed for fishing like the Master Angler Series from Flying Fisherman (www.flyingfisherman.com). This will cut glare and allow you to see deeper into the water at greater distances, to spot even those subtle changes in shallow vegetation. A depth finder is critical for deeper growth. You can mark the edge or high spots in the grass on any map, or you can use a GPS to lay down a route to fish.

*Lure Options & Presentation

Minnowbaits and crankbaits are classic lures for trolling up muskies and pike. A major key when choosing some for trolling vegetation is to choose floating models that are buoyant, and will pop to the surface quickly when the boat is stopped or slowed to a crawl. Two favorites are the Czar minnowbait from Tyrant Tackle (www.tyranttackleinc.com) and the Super Ciscoe crankbait from Tackle Industries (www.tackleindustries.com). The very durable Czar has a great injured baitfish wobble, and while most minnowbaits are either round or flat sided, the Czar is a very unique in-between kind of plug. Its sides are flat enough to produce excellent flash, but they are also just a little bit rounded as well, giving it a unique action than the rest of the minnowbaits out there. The Super Ciscoe is also highly unique. It’s a tight wiggling, deep bodied shad type crankbait like others on the market, but unlike the others on the market, this lure is made of tough, tooth proof plastic instead of wood. These are tough as nails and withstand the abuse of muskie and pike fishing like the other shad lures do not. Additionally, Super Ciscoes also have rattles and produce sound unique to large shad cranks.

Spinnerbaits have always been one of the very best choices of lures for trolling around vegetation. The long arm safety pin style spinnerbaits are much better than inline spinners, often called bucktails, because spinnerbaits are far more weedless and snag resistant. The upper wire arm of this lure deflects it off cover objects that would snag an inline and helps shed many types of weeds and grasses that would foul an inline. The best spinnerbaits have one or two single upturned hooks, which are far more snag resistant and weedless than trebles. Multi-blade spinnerbaits with 3 or more blades are best, as the smaller blades tend to cut a path for the larger blades to come through the weeds and grass easier.

The classic blade style for fishing vegetation has always been the willow leaf blade. These thin narrow blades slide easily through vegetation that the round colorado and indiana blades can’t. The Simms Tackle School N Shad spinnerbaits from Simms Outdoors (www.simmsoutdoors.com) feature either 3, 4 or 5 willow leaf blades on a long wire arm, which is great for fishing vegetation with any method. When it comes to trolling vegetation, it’s a top option. A hot new design might just be the very best lure created for fishing toothies in weeds and grass. The Simms Tackle Hatchet Shad spinnerbait from Simms Outdoors is a long arm safety pin style spinnerbait, like the School N Shad, but with a triple counter-rotating hatchet blade design. Like willows, hatchets are the other blade type that comes through vegetation very well. But, the hatchet blade tends to chop its way through, rather than sliding through like the willow. The unique curve of this blade and the sharp point at the end, allow it to virtually mow the lawn. But, the real key in this system is the 3 graduated hatchets in a counter-rotating design. The smaller hatchet blades chop a path for the larger hatchet blades behind them which are turning in the opposite direction as the blade in front of it. It’s unlike anything ever created and makes fishing muskies and pike in and around vegetation far more productive.

*Get Out There

Muskies and pike are some of the biggest and toughest predators that swim the freshwaters of the entire world and catching them is a heart pounding, knee knocking experience that few things can compare to. Seasons have a way of slipping away from us, and you don’t want to miss it, so get out there…

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