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Some heavy thoughts on bassin' in the slop

I see myself as an explorer, someone who acquires knowledge while traveling through both space and time.

Based on that statement, some detractors would refer to me as a space cadet, but I choose to take the high road because I have literally been there and done all that as well.

Now, regarding the kind of bass fishing done while surrounded by watery, obnoxiously slimy, super-heavy cover, I have come to a certain stage in my angling education and life. In addition to adapting to different angling environments, I often prefer to embrace three distinctively different presentation styles.

Drop-shotting and whacky-worming aside, of late I have had a tendency to use the following proven techniques, for mostly largemouth bassing.

I say "proven" because they worked for me in a big way.

I include the use of Little Action Mac pre-rigged plastic worms. I use them weightless, so I can skate the worm over the top of heavy cover.

The other two methods focus on the use of the plastic, totally weedless frogs and other similar creatures that are pulled along the surface of heavy weed cover commonly referred to as "slop."

And the last technique was taught to me by two very different guys - one from Texas, the other from Michigan.

The first time I fished Lake Fork in east Texas, I encountered a sharpshooter angler who suggested I switch to a one-ounce bass jig and tip it with some sort of featured creature, such as a squirmy crawdad, lizard, short-grub trailer or the like. Like the Michigan tournament guy, they both believed the heavy mat cover could be easily penetrated and conquered with a heavy jig, and waiting largemouth hiding either on the bottom or just below he mat would go for the jig combo more easily once their lateral lines signaled an intruder.

So last year I took the tactic to school on Bangs Lake, and against for a month this year. In my book, the results were pretty amazing.

I used big 1-ounce Lindy walleye jigs with a plastic crawdad, while also making the setup weedless by burying the hook's end into the craw.

I also used a casting reel spooled with one of the 20-pound super braids and tipped with a 40-pound fluorocarbon leader. I was playing it safe by using that kind of heavy leader and line.

The reel sat firmly in the reel seat of a 7-foot Grandt XLH casting rod.

And then I headed for the heavy stuff.

The sun was starting to creep over the tops of the eastern shoreline trees.

After shutting down, I gradually eased into the heavy cover area. I made short casts to around 15 feet from the boat, figuring at this early stage of my "continuing education" I wanted to have better line control while allowing the jig and crawdad to penetrate the heavy cover. Nothing happened once the rig broke through.

I carefully moved the boat another 15 feet to my right, still in the salad, and repeated the process.

It was on the fifth cast when I felt the proverbial tick on the line. The jig had busted through the surface junk and slowly made its way to the bottom. Even with the heavy 1-ounce device, one might assume the rig would sink like a big cannon shell. But no - the plastic crawdad added quite a bit of buoyancy to the rig and thereby slowed the fall once it broke through the heavy surface weeds.

I immediately raised the rod and set the hook. I boated about 3½ pounds of largemouth bass, along with another 3-plus pounds of cabbage and coontail weeds. I didn't mind the fact I had dredged up a lot of weed cover, because I was able to knock on the front door where this one largemouth was living.

I went on to catch six more big bass in several other heavily covered areas.

• Contact Mike Jackson at angler88@comcast.net, catch his radio show 7-9 a.m. Sundays on WGCO 1590-AM (live-streamed at www.1590WCGO.com) and get more content at www.mikejacksonoutdoors.com.

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