By David A. Brown
Special to BassFan
Talk of “grass fishing” tends to conjure images of hydrilla and milfoil, but we can’t overlook those long, slender blades we call eel grass. Once an afterthought, eel grass has gained prominence in major bass fisheries from Alabama’s Lake Guntersville to the Upper Mississippi River, where this year’s Bassmaster Elite Series concluded.
“I love it,” Drew Cook said with zero hesitation. “I grew up fishing eel grass in the Apalachicola River and that tidal fishery has always been good.”
Alabama’s Kyle Welcher also likes the eel grass habitat, but his fondness has been a more recent in development.
“When I fished the Bassmaster Eastern Open on the Harris Chain in 2019, that was my first experience in seeing how good they got in eel grass all over the country,” Welcher said of the third-place finish that helped him earn his Elite qualification. “I found this eel grass flat where there fish were spawning and there was eel grass growing around the docks, but it couldn’t grow under the docks because there was no sunlight.
“A dock would make a hole in the eel grass, so I would pitch a Texas-rigged stick worm up to the edge of the eel grass, barely under the dock. I caught 23 pounds on the second day doing that.”
More recently, Welcher spent most of his time during that final Elite in La Crosse, Wis. targeting eel grass flats where big holes with sand, pea gravel and stumps served as bass magnets. Both instances exemplify key details of the eel grass appeal.
Favorable Features
So, what’s to like?
> Good neighborhood: Known for rooting in firm, sandy bottom, eel grass immediately represents good largemouth water.
> Consistency: When you find eel grass, you typically find a bunch of it. As we’ll see in a moment, you don’t want to burn too much daylight with random casts, but the greater the mass, the greater the chances of finding sweet spots.
> Cooperation: “It’s easy to fish and if there’s any current, all the eel grass lays over and you don’t get hung up,” Cook said. “If you get hung up, just pop your bait and it comes out.”
Kyle Welcher became a fan of eel grass when he caught a 23-pound bag from it in a Bassmaster Open.
Worth noting here, Welcher stresses the need for situational awareness. While even treble-hook baits come through eel grass more efficiently than hydrilla or milfoil, you don’t want to dig into the vegetation, just tickle the tops – and mind your angles.
“The only thing you don’t want to do is go against the wind or current,” Welcher said. “If the grass is topped out and laid over and you throw downwind or downcurrent, you’ll hang up on every cast (as opposed to casting upwind or upcurrent and bringing your bait on a natural course).”
> Clarity: As Welcher notes, eel grass makes a great filtration system.
“Eel grass makes the water very clear. For example, during the Elite at La Crosse, we got a lot of rain that week and a lot of the river got muddy, but that eel grass filtered the water. You’d have an area of zero visibility and you’d move 2 feet and it would be clear because of eel grass. It forms a barrier and traps that clean water.”
When It's Good
Given its cover, bait-gathering and clarity aspects, eel grass can serve a broad range of needs, all depending on the fish’s seasonal patterns. Starting with prespawn, Cook likes the deeper grass with good current exposure on lakes such as Guntersville and Pickwick.
One of his favorites is a hydrilla flat with isolated eel grass patches. Something different amid the sameness holds magnetic appeal.
On a related note, Welcher judges eel grass potential by its proximity to other features. Could be as simple as a well-defined edge that drops into a sandy bottom, a prominent pad field, a laydown or, as previously noted, a dock.
Sometimes, those transition areas are entirely within the eel grass bed. Welcher considers these high-percentage spots.
“For me, it’s all about edges,” Welcher said. “Eel grass is really good around the spawn because it grows on hard, sandy bottom and that’s what bass like to spawn on.
“You’ll have a big area of eel grass and it may look like it’s all the same, but a lot of times, there will be holes in there and every one of them will have a bass on it.”
The only downside: “You’re looking for a needle in a haystack,” Welcher said. “It takes longer to find a school using that eel grass, but when you find them, they’re all in one little area.”
Subject to seasonal growth patterns, often impacted by the year’s weather, eel grass can play a role in the extremes of summer and winter. This vegetation also factors into the fall game, as migrating bait schools often tarry along points and isolated clumps, so give these ambush spots a good look.
Movement Matters
Like anything in life, too much of a good thing can be a limitation. As Welcher explains, topped-out eel grass greatly limits speed and maneuverability.
“The blades are coarse and skinny, and they wrap around your trolling motor head and the shaft,” he said. “It’s hard to go fast and be efficient.”
Having grown up fishing the Apalachicola River, Drew Cook has long understood the attraction of eel grass.
Cook adds that trying to force your way through a dense eel grass bed often spooks more fish than you’ll see – especially during the spawn.
“If there’s any wind, get upwind, trim up the motor, keep the trolling motor up and float through the eel grass and use a push pole to guide the boat,” Cook said. “That way, you’re really quiet and you’re not disturbing the grass.”
When he spots a fish, a bed or a generally promising spot worth investigating, Cook uses his Power-Poles to not only stop his boat, but to create a strategic buffer zone.
“I’ll Power-Pole down until they catch and when I feel the boat snapping backward, I’ll raise my poles to silently drift back 15-20 feet and the drop my Power-Poles a second time.”
Concerns and Considerations
Acknowledging the potential for eel grass intimidation, Cook said: “It’s easy for people to get overwhelmed with how much there is. They don’t want to find the open spots, the spots where it’s thinner or thicker.
“Most people would rather find smaller (eel grass flats), but a bigger flat offers more opportunity.
“Another reason people hate eel grass is when a lot of trolling motors have run through it and get that chopped up grass, it’ll get hung on your bait. You’ll make a long cast, get your bait back to the boat and realize you wasted a cast.
“Or on lakes like Guntersville where there’s a lot of summertime recreational traffic chopping up the eel grass, trying to throw a deep-diving crankbait is nearly impossible.”
Cook counters this frustration by switching to a 3/4- to 1-ounce ChatterBait, removing the skirt and adding a big swimbait trailer. Here, the bladed jig serves a dual purpose, as the usual vibration attraction, as well as a grass indicator.
“If I feel that blade stop vibrating, I know I have grass on my bait,” Cook said. “I’ll pop it to clear the grass so I don’t waste that cast.”
On the upside, when wind and/or current gathers all that chopped grass, it forms mats that blow into laydowns, against bluff walls, reeds, etc. A mat creates shade and bass like shade – do the math.
