Fish utilize grassy cover for purely selfish reasons. However, anglers who show these fish the right looks can find a gold mine of opportunity hiding beneath the cover.

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Video transcript:

Devon:
What's up everyone? Devon from Debo's Fishing, here on the MONSTERBASS channel, out on a fun little lake here in Minnesota. Throw a little bit of floating jerkbait action. Back in the day, the Rapala floating minnow was all the craze over some shallow grass like this, on the edges of the lily pads. And that's exactly what we're going to be doing today.

Devon:
The summer months, the fish have moved off the shore. They're done spawning looking for some of that deeper water. However, they're not all going to be super, super deep, so that's what we're going to try to target today with this MONSTERBASS. This is a smaller 99 size. It's a half ounce, but floating. And that's going to be the key because we're going to be running this right over the tops of grass, right on the edges of some of this grass and letting it float up.

Devon:
So as opposed to a sinking or suspending jerkbait, as I'm popping this, and it gets cut a little bit of that grass, I can pop it free and let it float up. And oftentimes that's when you're going to get a bite.

Devon:
All right. Cool. Well, that didn't take very long. On the jerk bait, we thought might be able to find a few, like we said, on the edges of the grass and right over it. The little spot that we're in right here, this is right on the edge of the grass. And I saw that fish come out from that grass, from the side of those pads and come out and eat it. And that's what we were hoping to find.

Devon:
All right. So I'm fishing this on a shorter rod with jerk baits from the boat. It's not as big of a deal, but I do a lot of bank fishing.

Devon:
This is a six-foot 10. From the bank, if you're trying to pop a rod tip down, you're going to be in grass. You're going to be in rocks, all that kind of stuff. With the boat, you can see I'm a little bit up off. So you can go with the seven-foot, six 10, something like that, just a little bit shorter. So you can work that bait as opposed to the soft stick bait.

Devon:
I'm really imparting a lot of action with this rod. So I want to jerk and jet and then just stop there and slowly float up. I'm using 12-pound fluorocarbon. If you wanted it to go down just a little bit deeper, you can go to a lighter line. So a 10-pound or even eight-pound will get that bait to go down just a little bit deeper for you.

Devon:
And then for me, I like a six or seven speed reel. Doesn't really matter because again, I'm working the bait with the rod, not the reel, so it's whatever you're comfortable with.

Devon:
So as you can see here in front of me, I've got, again, some lily pads and grass. Like we talked about earlier, that's really going to be the focus. And since this is a rising jerkbait, I want to keep it just subsurface. So this is only diving down about a foot and a half with this 12-pound line. Could probably get it to go a little bit deeper, but this is working out perfect because then I'm not getting all the way down into that deeper grass that's out here off the edges of this.

Devon:
All right. So let's go over the cadence. For me, I like to throw two pops and then a pause, or pop, pop, and then a third pop. So two pause, with one at the end are just two pops. And really, I'm letting the fish dictate what they want. So sometimes, like I said, they'll want just those two and then kill it.

Devon:
Sometimes you add that third one in there, and it's like the fish sees it for a second and tries to run away on that third pop. So just vary it up, pop, pop, pause, and then one more. And then let it sit for a little bit or just pop, pop, let it sit, pop, pop, let it sit. Whatever the fish are eating, just keep mimicking when you're getting bites, throwing the old floating jerkbait.

Devon:
Nice cloudy day like today, the spot here, this little lake, it's pretty, pretty clear. So they can see this jerkbait on the edges of these weeds. A decent low pound and a half, we'll take those.

Devon:
All right. So we made a little bit of a move here. When we first started out, it was a little bit shallow where we thought we were going to get some bites. Just didn't work out. I've got 12-pound floor carbon on here. So I wanted to keep it just where I could see on the edges of this grass, just where it was barely getting down to it and stopping.

Devon:
Now, as I talked about before, you can vary the depth your jerkbait's going to go just by changing the line. So if you're throwing a jerkbait out and you keep getting caught, stuck in that muck and stuff, you're maybe four feet down, you can go to a higher line. If you're throwing 10 pounds, you can move up to 12 or 15-pound and keep that bait up above that grass. And that's really the key to this.

Devon:
These fish are on the corners of that grass, just sitting in the grass. And this is working perfect right here where we've got it going a couple feet down. Every few casts, we're getting a bite, which is what we planned on.

Devon:
So keep that in mind. And another thing is when I talked about fluorocarbon, fluorocarbon or mono are really what you need to go with on a jerkbait because you're doing that jerking popping. And that lure loose. If you go with braid, it's just so supple and moves around, it doesn't stick out in front of that bait very well. And you're going to get snagged in the hooks a lot. So monofilament or Fluorocarbon, you'll be a lot better off.

Devon:
All right, y'all. We're getting ready to get out of here, but the Slick Stick 99 has been the deal today. Throwing a floating shallow diving jerkbait like this up against the grass, up against these pads, was exactly what the fish wanted. We even switched over to a little five-inch stick bait, trying to dead stick that.

Devon:
But dog days of summer like this, high sky, no clouds, they didn't even want the stick bait. They wanted to react. And almost every single one of these bites was throwing it as close to those pads as I could, or back in those little indentations, getting it as far back in those pads and bringing it out. Those fish were sitting just on the edge and would hit it.

Devon:
And like I said before, don't pull your bait out when they swipe it. I had multiple fish come up and swipe and flash on this bait, pop it again a couple times and they come up and ate it. So if you've never thrown a shallow diving, floating jerkbait, give it a try.

Devon:
A lot of people think of deeper diving, suspending, jerkbaits. But even with the dog days, hot days of summer like this, you can still throw a shallow jerkbait up against all those pads, just like you would a stick bait.

Devon:
So again, this is Devon from Debo's Fishing. Come to you on the MONSTERBASS channel. I'm getting out of here. So thanks for watching. Until next time.