Don't Overlook Submerged Grass In Your Hunt For Rod-Bending Action
Story and Photos By Mark Hicks

Everybody knows crappie hang around hard cover such as windfalls, standing trees, brushpiles, docks and rocks. That's where most people fish for them. However, many fishermen don't realize that crappie also cozy up to submerged and emergent grass, and that you can load a cooler with slabs if you know how to fish the greenery.

Crappie guide Tim Gibson has a master's degree in grass fishing. He's been a full-time guide for 17 years. He spends his winters on Lake Okeechobee and the rest of the year on Indiana's Patoka Lake. He and his clients regularly pluck crappie from grass on both bodies of water.

When the water's warm enough for crappie to be active, Gibson vertical jigs the grass with an 11-foot B 'n' M Sam Heaton Super Sensitive crappie pole matched with an ultra-light spinning reel filled with 4- or 6-pound Yo-Zuri Hybrid fluorocarbon line. Gibson gets giddy when he talks about the pole's sensitivity.

"Those are the sweetest poles I've ever used," Gibson says. "You can actually feel a 1/32- or 1/16-ounce jig hit a leaf of grass when you drop it in there."

Gibson dresses the light jigs with a 11/2-inch Mizmo Tube. The natural light minnow color is his most productive, but he carries a host of other colors in case the crappie want something else. The jighead is usually white, orange or red.

In early summer, submerged grasses like milfoil have yet to reach the surface. The grass grows from depths of 6 to 10 feet on Patoka Lake, and it may top out a foot or more beneath the surface where you can see it. Gibson starts jigging the edge of the grass and slowly works his boat into it with a bow-mounted electric motor on low speed.

"I drop the jig into the grass on a tight line," he says. "The slower you drop it, the better."

His first drop lowers the jig 6 to 8 inches into the top of the grass. He holds the rod dead still for a few moments and then very gently jiggles the jig one time. Many strikes come at this instant. If nothing nabs the jig, Gibson slowly drops it down 16 to 18 inches and repeats the dead-stick-and-jiggle routine. He continues to work deeper into the grass in the same fashion until he starts getting bites. Sometimes the bites come just above the bottom.

Once he finds a productive depth, Gibson concentrates on it, because all the crappie are likely to be at the same level. However, Gibson claims that the depth often changes when you move to another grass bed. A change in locations can also result in bigger or smaller crappie.

"Crappie are gathering up according to size at that time of year," Gibson says. "Some grass beds hold bigger crappie than others."

Gibson has learned that crappie tend to feed on the outside edges of the grass early in the morning. When the sun gets higher, the crappie move shallower because the grass is thicker there and offers more shade. Many anglers automatically fish deeper at midday. In this instance, they're doing exactly the wrong thing.

A weed cutter on Gibson's Minn Kota trolling motor lets him sneak through the grass without making a commotion. This aftermarket product from Mister Twister is called Shear Magic. It clamps around the electric motor housing and holds two sharp metal blades on both sides of the propeller. When the prop catches grass, the blades shear it off to keep the motor running freely.

"That's the nicest thing I've ever used for fishing grass," Gibson says. "It cuts the fire out of those weeds."

Gibson continues to vertical jig the grass even after it grows up and forms mats on the surface. If the grass is too thick for the jig to penetrate, he pulls the jig to the rod's tip, pokes the rod tip through the grass and lets the jig fall under the mat.

Another option is to push small openings into the grass with what Gibson calls his "cuttin' pole." He pulls up to the edge of a grass mat, makes several holes in the grass around his boat with the cuttin' pole and jigs down through the holes.

Whether he fishes through matted grass or grass that tops out under the surface, Gibson always applies some type of scent to his jig. He carries a tackle bag in his boat that's stuffed with all manner of bass scents, walleye scents, Berkley Crappie Nibbles and even food-flavoring scents.

"Last year I was knocking the heck out of the crappie in Florida with raspberry," Gibson says. "That can change from day to day, but you'll catch twice as many crappie using scent."

Oklahoma crappie guide Todd Huckabee is also keen on scents, especially Yum LPT (Live Prey Technology). Though he is known for catching crappie from standing timber, brush and other hard cover, Huckabee also scores big on grass when the conditions are right. He claims the best time is in summer when a thermocline forces crappie into shallow water.

In extremely hot weather, the thermocline sets as shallow as 8 feet deep on some of the lakes Huckabee fishes. The crappie can't go deeper than that because water below the thermocline lacks sufficient oxygen. This is when crappie move to grass, which produces oxygen.

Waterwillow, peppergrass, hydrilla, milfoil and leafy pondweeds all yield crappie to Huckabee. Whatever grass he fishes, he always looks for the healthiest patches because they make more oxygen for the crappie.

The type of grass dictates how Huckabee fishes it. When he targets waterwillows, he rigs a 1/8-ounce Crappie Pro jig with a 11/2-inch Yum Vibra King tube 1 to 2 feet below a medium Wing-It slip-bobber.

Waterwillow is an emergent vegetation that generally grows in the shallows and stands about 2 feet tall. Huckabee claims it is especially good for crappie in late June and July when its white blooms blossom.

"For whatever reason, when the waterwillow is blooming you need to fish a white jig," Huckabee says.

Huckabee sneaks along close to waterwillow beds with his electric motor and drops the bobber into any openings he finds in the grass with a 9-foot Quantum Xtralite Todd Huckabee dippin' rod. He matches the rod with a size 10 Quantum Energy spinning reel and 8-pound Silver Thread AN40 monofilament.

Once the jig sinks beneath the cork and settles, Huckabee pops it once. If that doesn't trigger a strike, he lifts the bobber and drops it into another hole. By staying on the move and hitting many holes, Huckabee pieces together a good catch of crappie.

Peppergrass doesn't have openings like waterwillow, so Huckabee tackles it by fishing a 1/8-ounce jig and a Vibra King tube vertically without a bobber. This lets him dip the jig precisely into small openings in the grass and vary the depth of the jig. As when fishing waterwillows, he keeps moving and covers a lot of ground.

When Huckabee fishes milfoil, hydrilla or leafy pondweed that tops out beneath the surface, he often switches to a 11/2-inch Yum Wooly Curltail grub. He fan-casts the grub over the grass and swims it back with a 7-foot Quantum Xtralite rod and 8-pound monofilament. After each cast, he lets the jig sink down just above the grass, typically 3 to 5 feet deep.

"The bottom might be 8 feet deep," Huckabee says. "What happens is you'll swim the jig over a hole in the grass that you can't see, and you'll catch a crappie there. Pay close attention. If you can swim your jig back through the same place at the same depth, you'll catch more crappie from that spot."

If the grass is matted on the surface, Huckabee casts parallel or quartering to the edge of the mat. Then he swims the grub back over the top of submerged grass that grows in deeper water off the mat. The grub coaxes crappie out from under the mat and up from the submerged grass.

Huckabee discovered another casting tactic for grass a few years ago while fishing with his daughter Avery. They were fishing a cove on Oklahoma's Lake Eufaula that Huckabee had never been in before. Tiny islands of waterwillow dotted the middle of the cove. Huckabee had his daughter cast a 3-inch Yum Dinger to the grass with a light spinning outfit.

"A fish boiled on that Dinger right away, and I figured she'd hooked a bass," Huckabee says. "I was surprised when she reeled in a nice crappie. We stayed right there and caught crappie after crappie after crappie on those Dingers."