Fishing the slop?

[Clay]

So the gills and crappies are in the shallows and so are the weeds. What is your approach to fishing this stuff? I see the fish and have great success IF I can get a fly in front of them with being covered with weed slime. I can't get two casts in, without having to remove the green stuff.

Since the fish are plentiful, would you just change location to get to a better weed free spot? Or do you have a particular pattern that sheds this crap easier? I think they will bite whatever I put in front of them. My only requirement is that I can see the fly, so white or chartreuse is how I tie them.

A shove in the right direction would be wonderful.

[rwar1423]

@Clay Are you fishing from bank or by boat/kayak? We have the same problem in a man made lake here in NE. What we do is wade & get our cast past the weeds, focusing on the weed edges. Other thing I do is look for open pockets in the weeds. If in a boat/kayak, 2 approaches depending on wind direction is to face into the weed edge and fan cast the edges, or go parallel the weed edge so you can cover more area. The pattern that's worked for us is the Bully's Bluegill Spider: Yellow body/white legs, black body/white legs. I've taken bass & panfish on that pattern.

Yeah, you may wind up having to clean gunk off the fly, but that next cast might be the one that hooks the big one.

Pick a pattern your confident in. My rule of thumb is not to leave feeding fish to find feeding fish. Hope that helps.

[Clay]

Thanks for the thoughts. While I have a nice Lund boat, I fish out of a kayak these days. The problem that accompanied my post was seeing nice, aggressive fish that wanted to eat but getting a fly to them in the slop without the fly becoming fouled was a challenge. While there were fish on the weed edge, it's hard to leave adult, mature fish in the shallows willing to eat to find the ones on the weed edge.

I took your approach of just cleaning the gunk off of the fly and was rewarded. Casting accuracy was important to hit small openings in the slop. It was still a good day on the water, just wish that I had a fly that shed the gunk better that what I was throwing to them.

[Rick Z]

Try tying flies on light jig head hooks. Also put a few loops of krystal flash over the hook point at these. Light weed guard.

Rick

[Clay]

Try tying flies on light jig head hooks. Also put a few loops of krystal flash over the hook point at these. Light weed guard.

Rick

Thanks for the ideas Rick. I think that this would be a good idea to fish cabbage weed or something that is a better quality lake weed. But this stuff is that green slime that just covers the whole fly. I think that I just need to put up with this slime removal after EVERY cast or find the fish on a different spot. But like I said earlier, it's hard to leave good sized panfish that are biting for maybe finding fish at another spot. Total agreement with Rwar: "My rule of thumb is not to leave feeding fish to find feeding fish."

[rwar1423]

@Clay Have you ever tried a Bully's Bluegill Spider?
It's relatively weedless. Whenn I do get weeds/gunk on the fly, 1or 2 false casts is usually all it takes to get the stuff off. Then you have the stuff that wraps its self around the fly like a cacoon. That's the real pain.

[NJTroutbum]

I fish from a tube and tend to fish a Gurgler style pattern and don't really retrieve. I slap the fly into small openings, let it sit for a second, then switch it just enough to show life. After several attempts with the twitch and pause, I will lift it straight up and out, then shoot for a new opening. Usually get 3-4 casts between cleanings. No need for a lot of retrieval...the fish don't miss the fly landing, and they either eat or don't. Usually if they don't eat it, its just too far away. Give it a few minutes and then slap another cast down a bit closer.