Fishing Bass In Lily Pads

The proof is in the pudding.  Once in a while taking a chance really pays off.  Last year we fished lily pads more then ever before and we caught a lot of fish.  I am talking hundreds of bass that came out of the lily pads.  Many of the bass caught were over 5 and 6 pounds.  The question everyone is asking is what we did differently as compared to other years.

Its really all about the lures that I use.  On top of what lures I use its also about how I fish them.  The lures are top water lures that dont hook into weeds too often.  The thing is before I used to fish the lure as slow as possible.  My thinking said I had to put the lure in front of the bass for as long as possible.  My thinking was even knowing bass are fast they would never keep up to my hook if it was going too fast.  So I was fishing slow.  Of course I would catch a few but it just seemed that I wasnt catching the fish to the potential I should have been.

Then one day while using a buzz bait I decided to start fishing it fast through the lily pads.  I was reeling it almost as fast as I could possibly reel it.  So today I was using the same lure as usual but today I was reeling fast and since that I started getting many more hits.  So from barely any strikes before I was now getting many, many strikes.  I was fishing the same area, using the same hooks at the same time of the year.  The only thing I was doing different now was reeling the hook in much faster.

Then I started missing the strikes.  The bass fish were there, they were hitting but they werent staying on the hook.  At that point I knew it was a matter of compromise.  So I decided to slow down just a little bit and that seemed to be the answer.  All of a sudden we were catching all kinds of bass out of the lily pads.  Just a few small changes resulted im me and a few others having our best bass season ever and to top it off we were catching big bass out of the lily pads.

The biggest thing you will always hear me say is make sure you keep on fishing.  If you give up and take your hook out of the water you stand no chance of catching anything. 

We know its all about catching a fish.  However as I always say a bad day of fishing is always better then a good day at work.