Bass Fishing Tip of the Week 12/13/09: Fishing Heavy Cover After a Cold Front

Cold fronts and bass are not necessarily mutually exclusive but you need to learn what tactics to use to have a decent fishing outing. In most cases bass either move to deep water and suspend or can move to heavy cover such as matted grass, timber or heavy grass lines. Let's explore some options in fishing heavy cover after a cold front.

1- Bass often migrate in and out of shallow water during the winter/early spring months searching for spawning areas. A significant cold front will often drive these searching fish to heavy cover near good sandy spawning flats. So when searching for heavy cover post front fish, look for the heaviest cover in what appears to be a good spawning area.

2- The outfit best suited for catching fish out is a flippin or flipping stick with a heavy duty reel spooled with braid or mono. With mono you can get by with 20 pound plus line due to some forgiveness of the shock load due to line stretch but with braid you must go to heavier pound test in the 50 pound plus range due to a decrease in impact shock loading characteristics of braid.

A heavy bullet weight is a must to get down through the cover, Weight size can vary depending on the thickness of the cover but typically 1/2 to 1 1/2 ounce weights will suffice.

3- When flippin heavy mats such as hyacinths, chopped up grass or any other floating cover try to flip near any emerging cover coming through the floating cover. A good example is a mat of hyacinths in either a reed patch or lily pad field. Flip near reed stalks or pads that come through the mat. Fish often relate to the cover that comes up through the mat.

4- When flippin timber laydowns, get real close to the main trunk of the cover or heavy timber laden branches.

5- Many strikes in heavy cover often come on the initial fall. Some strikes are very obvious with a typical thump as when casting, however flippin fish often strike by simply inhaling the lure and not moving afterwards. These types of bites can be detected by a mushy feel on the end of the line or a slight twitch of the line when the lure decends. Line watching is a must when flippin.

6- Lures to use to fish heavy cover include straight tailed worms like a Zoom trickworm when the cover is super thick. A craw style bait can be awesome if you can get through the mats.

Give these heavy cover tips a try after the next cold front and you may be surprised at the heavy stringer you come up with. Until next time check out all the tips at floridabassfishing.us and start doing more catching with less fishing :)

The Largemouth Herald