Best Weedless Lures for Bass: 5 Baits for Fishing Heavy Cover
The magic part of bass fishing is the wide variety of zones that you get to fish to get bass in the boat throughout the whole year. You’ll find bass in open water offshore, under bridges, around slipways, and best of all, you’ll find them in the heaviest vegetation you can think of. Let’s talk about targeting bass around heavy cover and highlight some of the best weedless lures for bass.
Weedless Lure Bass Fishing: Targeting Heavy Cover
Being able to fish vegetation is critical when it comes to bass fishing. Largemouth bass especially will hug cover and vegetation during specific seasons, but they’ll also do so when they are pressured.
Heavy vegetation/cover gives bass a sense of safety, and they often provide the most productive zones for getting bites throughout the year.
Not all techniques are suited to fishing around vegetation, as exposed hook points result in the regular event of getting snagged, and having weed/vegetation catch onto the lure.
Weedless bass lures ensure that the hook points are hidden or facing away from the vegetation to some extent. This gives us the ability to fish heavy and threatening vegetation - a powerful method in finding strike zones.
The best bass lure for heavy vegetation is a flipping jig or a Texas rig. These baits punch through any form of vegetation to get to your desired strike zone without getting hung up.
Here are reasons why bass will look to cover, and being able to present a bait in these zones is so important:
- Fishing pressure: Released bass will find comfort around heavy vegetation
- Spawn: Largemouth bass prefer spawning near shallow cover
- Shade: Summer months bring about serious heat, and even bass need to avoid the sun during the hot hours
- Ambush: Along with comfort, bass will also use cover to position themselves in a way to ambush their prey
Best Weedless Lures for Bass Fishing
Without further ado, let's talk about some of the most effective baits for fishing heavy vegetaion/cover.
Some of the best weedless lures for bass fishing are topwater hollow frogs, Texas rigs, flpping jigs, swim jigs, and weedless wacky rigs.
1. Topwater Hollow Frog
This is the most snag-proof bait that you get in bass fishing. It's also incredibly fun to fish as it gives you the ability to fish water that doesn't look fishable.
Hollow frogs are designed to sit on-top of the water, with two hooks facing upward and away from the vegetation. This profile ensures that you can throw your frog almost anywhere on the water and not have to think about getting snagged.
However, with this profile, hooksets become more difficult. We require the bass to really engulf the bait and setting the roof of the mouth will always be your best bet in getting a clean, direct hookset.
Fishing a topwater hollow frog around lily pads and other shallow vegetation is exhilarating, especially during the late spawn season and early summer months.
2. Texas Rig
The Texas rig will go down as the most popular rig for bass fishing. It's designed to fish around heavy cover, and it's a favorite technique for flipping and pitching.
The reason it's so good around cover and effectively weedless, is because the hook point is hidden within the soft plastic. In order to expose the hook point, the bait would have to take a large knock, such as a bass smashing your bait.
The bullet weight on top the bait also plays a big role in getting the bait through heavy cover. The bait effectively drags the bait down under vegetation, presenting our soft plastic to our target strike zones.
The Texas rig is without a doubt one of the most prolific fish-catching weedless techniques, and it's incredibly efficient when it comes to covering water.
We've covered a piece on the best setup for the Texas rig, if you're new to the application and looking to add it to your arsenal.
The profile of a Texas rig
3. Flipping Jig
The flipping jig is a bait you'll throw around similar zones as you would for the Texas rig.
A strong weed guard provides your hook point with protection from vegetation and other snag-related threats. The flipping jig, like the Texas rig, are designed purely to be thrown into the thick stuff, giving you access to waters that don't look fishable.
The flipping jig can imitate numerous forms of prey, but it mostly represents a craw. Many will fish the flipping jig in a similar fashion as the Texas rig - cast it right into the thick stuff, let it fall to the bottom, give it a few twitches and repeat.
The Strike King Hack Attack below is known to have one of the most durable weed guards, making it a powerful weapon in the thicket.
4. Swim Jig
The swim jig is a favorite on the circuit when it comes to fishing shallow vegetation and specializes in and around grass.
This jig differs from the flipping jig when it comes to the design of the head. The swim jig has a slimmer, more streamline head which makes it better for gliding through vegetation. This makes for the swim jig more suitable for longer casts with a steady but slow retrieve.
Along with the more streamline head, the swim jig also has a sturdy weed guard providing that adding insurance around vegetation.
Most bass anglers will throw a trailer on a swim jig, giving the presentation a bit more flair and a more lively profile. Trailer selection should be based on water clarity, as well as the forage within the system you're fishing.
5. Weedless Wacky Rig
We thought we'd include one finesse option in here, an option that will come to hand when the fishing gets real tough, and nothing else seems to work.
The wacky rig is one technique that serious bass anglers will turn to when they can't get a bite. This presentation is more subtle, slower, and usually a bit small in profile.
The weedless wacky rig is a slight alteration of the technique, as the hook simply includes a weed guard. This guard does a pretty good job in blocking any severe vegetation from getting you snagged.
This thrives around banks and shallow vegetation, and is a powerful method for targeting pressured fish that seek cover.
In terms of baits - check out our guide on the best baits for the wacky rig.
Conclusion
Weedless bass lures have simply become essential for our tacklebox, especially when we're targeting largemouth bass around shallow cover and vegetation. These fish absolutely love hugging these areas and weedless lures give us the key to presenting a bait within their strike zones.
These 5 lures and techniques are guaranteed to get you bites around vegetation and their chance of getting snagged is also nullified.
