Punching Hydrilla Mats

Use a heavy bullet weight on your punch rig and you ll be able to get your rig down through even the gnarliest of grass mats.

Punching hydrilla mats. The fitzgerald 7 6 heavy or the new titan hd fitzgerald 7 6 or 7 8 heavy flipping rods are perfect for this style of flipping. I haven t fished chickahominy lake in many years. Hydrilla tends to grow in a pyramid shape so seeing a few strands near the surface is often the tip of a rather large weedy iceberg below. Where punching mats even junk mats in florida is more like fishing a bank with 20 laydowns.

There will be one random trash mat in a river where the current has pushed a lot of leaves sticks and other debris into a treetop. Water temp is low to mid 90 s and hydrilla is matted and 7 feet deep with plenty of fish caught in area in march and april. Kenney points out that hydrilla beds often end up hosting a hodgepodge of various aquatic weeds including random hyacinth rafts. Punching grass mats article.

This is the thickest cover available to bass at this time because submerged grass such as hydrilla dies down in cold water in the wintertime bass love to get under heavy mats of hyacinth grigsby says. Okay so let s talk about this snell knot i keep mentioning. It s basically a knot that allows the hook to pivot perpendicularly to the pull of the line. That type of cover is too difficult for fishi.

It is nearly 100 hydrilla shortly after the onset of spring. Mixed mats florida pro j t. Finally fish typically bite best in matted grass during the middle of the day while the nearby weededges and the water over submerged grass often produce. This makes for a bass sanctuary similar to your home in that it has walls and a ceiling.

The hydrilla acts as a base that holds the hyacinth in place. Light punching hydrilla edges on river ledges isolated junk mats grass lines on shallow lakes for this type of punching i use a heavy rod but not as heavy as you would use for mat flipping. Any suggestions of baits and technequis for punching mats in these conditions. Here s what you ll need to setup your punch rig.

Punch skirts also seem to work best in hydrilla milfoil or coontail that s topped out but not forming a super thick mat. Bobber sinker stopper bullet weight punch skirt. The trick to presenting your bait to these cold fish hiding under the mats is to crash it through their roof the hyacinth using a large tungsten steel weight. It holds heat and the bass can bury in it when cold fronts hit grigsby prefers hyacinth mats that float over 4 to 7 feet of water.