Fish-Hawk.Net

Sorry I've taken a while to get around to this but I am running out of pictures! If anyone has a pic that is conducive to discussion, please send it to me. But here is one that will get the bass people yacking.

This is rice - miles of it. While you don't see the edge of the field, it does indeed have a well-defined edge. It has three to five feet of water underneath it, and in some spots it forms mats, in other spots there are patches of lily pads in the rice. The rice is tough! If you get a hook into it you need to pull hard to un-root the grass.

How do you like to approach it?
How do like to fish it?
What do you use to fish it?



I'm waiting patiently for CanCatchBass to go to town on this.

Gotta admit that it's painful looking at that photo while still having to wait another 3 months to give it a go.
Assuming the outside edges were not holding fish at the time,I would throw a topwater like scum frog and unweighted slug-o's and see what happens.If that's not successful I would slow down further and get deeper with texas rigged power worms and in the real heavy cover I would pitch a jig/craw combo and/or tubes;All the while moving slowly and quietly covering the area thoroughly while concentrating hardest on the deeper holes and heaviest cover especially where there is other underwater structure visible.I would also look for areas where different weed types meet.

FishHawk-Is that Mississippi?-sure looks like it.

Oh yeah Spinner. That's the big bay on Mississippi - beautiful ain't it?

I have to say that we were very successful with texas-rigged black Power worms, starting on the outside and then moving several feet inside, then few feet more and a few feet more. Then we started bringing push poles with us so that we could push the boat into the middle of this stuff.

We had to weight the worms pretty good so that they would drop straight down through the grass, dragging the line down too. Same for tubes.

I came upon a situation like this a few years ago on Gananoque Lake. We started out in a cove about 20 feet from shore, some weeds and clear, decided to drift and ended up in slop. We had minnows on and the bobber was about 3 feet from the bait. What fun we had pulling up huge Bass. I guess other fishermen passed up the area because of the thick weeds and slop. We just kept pulling up fish. I would do the same here.

Well I'd love to get into this one, cause there's acres of this stuff on Lower Rideau. BUT I've fished it, without any luck.

I've used sluggos in the middle and spinnerbait's on the edge and caught 1 tiny pike. unless someone was there before me, but I didn't see anyone. I couldn't catch a bass for the life of me!
Slimer

On the edge I would use a 1/4 oz spinner-bait throwing it into the weeds and pulling out slowly just as it hits the clearing i would let it sink to the bottom then slowly reel in. Then in the weeds TUBES,TUBES and TUBES. DID good on the miss last year.

Well I now I would get tangled alot but I would try a jerk bait and lit it sit then just twitch it back to the boat ,second would be a Johnson silver minnow with a 6" worm on it if it's to dence then well I would like to try a sluggo ,actualy never tryed one so any information you guys can give me on it is better then what I know now

Jackflash

Well, I have always avoided getting in this thick, but I picked up some stand up Jigs and lizards on the weekend, and could flip them in and let them sink, maybe, just maybe...

If not, I'd fish the edge, with a small spoon/cleo for some lurking pike.

[quote="Jackflash"]Well I now I would get tangled alot but I would try a jerk bait and lit it sit then just twitch it back to the boat ,second would be a Johnson silver minnow with a 6" worm on it if it's to dence then well I would like to try a sluggo ,actualy never tryed one so any information you guys can give me on it is better then what I know now

Jackflash[/quote]

Hey Flash,
I use sluggos basically texas-rigged. the bigger the bait the bigger the hook. I guess you can put weight on them, but I fish them without weights. You just chuck it out there and twitch it back slowly. I like using whites and pinks that way you can see the strikes, but don't set the hook till you feel the fish!!!
Slimer

I would first off work the outside with a spinnerbait or a buzzbait if the out side edge was free of heavy weeds maybe even a shallow running crank, then just get down and dirty witha JIGNPIG or a texas rigged Bass Assassin Craw or Hawg Assassin and i would probably spend the rest of the day there.

Bryan

i would fish very quick but slow at hte same time what i,m mean is that iwould move arround quickly concentrating on key targets . a key target in rice are very suttle but make huge differances ,sun position and direction of the rice will make a huge differance where the big guys are.
so if you find a little thicker patch that you can pendulate your bait from and move it real slow , a heavier jig or plastic will give you more control and make it easier to deteck the bite. with this method you concentrate on a large area and hopefully find the bigger fish quicker.
Tony de boer

I missed this post until today!

First, let me say I have spent MANY hours fishing this spot. Too many, in fact.

To those who talk about throwing spinnerbaits, or buzzbaits, or anything with a treble hook on it inside this stuff, I would advise- think again. If the bait makes it more than 5 feet without getting locked onto a rice stem, you're lucky. Stay to the outside with those tactics.

To be honest, fishing that rice bay and the other rice beds on Mississippi can be very frustrating. The bite is affected drastically by the weather. The fish are spread out over hundreds of acres. It's difficult to get a strike close to the boat. It's difficult to get the fish to the boat once hooked.

The first good limit (that I'm aware of) to come out of the rice was caught by the Wilson brothers, many years ago, using pink sluggos.

Tony is right on with his advice- keep moving, and use heavy jigs or soft plastics- there is a lot of water to cover and 95% of it will be non-productive. When you do find a fish though, they can be dandies.

Me, I head to the other end of the lake and have a ball catching 20 smallies an hour on topwaters. I've never won a tournament on Mississippi, but I do have fun.

CCB

hawghunter wrote:i would fish very quick but slow at hte same time what i,m mean is that iwould move arround quickly concentrating on key targets . a key target in rice are very suttle but make huge differances ,sun position and direction of the rice will make a huge differance where the big guys are.
so if you find a little thicker patch that you can pendulate your bait from and move it real slow , a heavier jig or plastic will give you more control and make it easier to deteck the bite. with this method you concentrate on a large area and hopefully find the bigger fish quicker.
Tony de boer

Nawwww - dat won't work there. Jeesshh - 28 tournament victories and you think he could come up with something better than that suggestion!

Referring to CCB's suggestion and Dubie's tubie suggestion, I can tell you that tubes work great in this neck of the woods. And so do black worms. Now Dubie will be using his tube weightless like a top water if I know Dubie. But I like to sink them down into the cracks between patches. That's where shot-gunning the weight inside the tube is handy. Need more weight? Take out the lite one and add the heavier one.

But when the tube hits the water, feed it a couple feet of line to get it to spiral straight down through the grass - CHOMP. Short tosses are much less frustrating than long ones, you're better able to get that downward spiral so essential with a tube.

Now contrary to CCB, Bobber and I will spend all day in there and catch piles of 3 pounders...that is unless it is tournament day, then we struggle to get 10 lbs from four fish. Black worms and tubes for me. I remember Dan Faubert (Manotick Bait and Tackle) doing well in there with Slug-gos too.

The deeper the water underneath, the better, as a general rule of thumb. And hitting the shady side as HH suggests is the norm for me too.