Survey/plead for help, sub-surface in the weeds.

One of the folks on Texas Fly Report pointed us to a small lake here in North Texas. Man oh man, she's a beauty! Lined with cattails, filled with lily pads and elodea. The topwater action is fantastic. But those of you who fish in Texas (and I suspect that it might be the case elsewhere as well) know that once the sun pops up the topwater shuts down...hard. Time to go home or practice casting til you're bored with it.

Sub surface is the way to go after that. I know that one can use a sink tip or sink line to fish deep but I am worried about all the vegetation; this place is loaded with it!

Have any of you good folk any tips on hassle-free, or relatively hassle-free techniques for sub surface fishing in heavy weeds?

Any for the record, anyone in North Texas who wants to know where this place is, email me and I'll gladly give the location. Just don't want any random lurking litters to find it and waste it.

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RRhyne56
[url=http://www.robinscustomleadersandflies.com:60d45]http://www.robinscustomleadersandflies.com[/url:60d45]
IM = robinrhyne@hotmail.com

thanks JC

I have never sat down and made myself get good at tying weedless patterns. Now it looks like I will have to. This place is too good to pass up.

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RRhyne56
[url=http://www.robinscustomleadersandflies.com:b6c8f]http://www.robinscustomleadersandflies.com[/url:b6c8f]
IM = robinrhyne@hotmail.com

I have found a large (7-8 inch long) minnow pattern tied with black icelandic sheep hair to be very effective and fairly weedless. The sheephair covers the hook point and acts as a weed guard. You'll pick up some weeds, but you'll also pick up some very nice bass.

Jim Smith

Weed guards or Clouser Minnows tied on smaller than saltwater hooks. If you don't tell the fish that they are salt water flies they won't know the difference.

jed

Robin try a unweighted 4" plastic worm with a sinking leader, use a 1/0 circle type hook. Texas rig the worm.

http://www.probass.net/protips/JeffB...s/image003.gif

Steer clear of beadchain or hourglass eyes. They can catch grass and weeds as well as any hook. For weight, use lead wraps under the fly body or cone heads. For weed-proofing, I use the following tricks-
Mono weedguards.
Bend-back flies with stiff bucktail covering the hook point.
Flies with deer hair heads and collars that hide the hook point. To get these to sink tie them with lead underbodies and/or cone heads, or split shot above the fly. (A floating fly on a sinking line can be killer)
Seaducers with stiff hackle in front of the hook point.
Instead of tying a fly on a size 2 saltwater hook, tie it on a size 6, 3XL streamer hook to get the same length, but a narrow hook gap that will catch fewer weeds.

Along the plastic worm theme, check out Zoom's new "tiny Fluke". Rig it the way as idabelangler's diagram. I tried one of these earlier this spring on one of the area's small lakes and the bass loved it. It was a little too heavy to cast with a 4 wt, but it was very effective. The Academy on 75 and Spring Creek has them and watermelon is a good color to start with.

Rex

I thought you guys didn't catch anything??? But you say the topwater action was fantastic? I've fished that lake before, got a lot of catfish in it too. Pretty but a bit far for me.