You're on a school of fish, or at least an area that holds a bunch of fish, but there's one problem: most are small. Maybe one out of every five, or one out of 10 or 20, is a good fish, the kind you need. So what do you do? Do you weed through the dinks to get to a good one or do you move on?

For Pennsylvania tour pro Dave Lefebre, winner of this year's Old Hickory FLW, this is the story of most of his tournament life. That's the situation that he wants. So he's a good one to talk about whether to weed or not.

But first of all, there's what type of situation you're talking about. "In my mind there are two types of weeding," he said. "There's the kind when you know that's what's going to be happening that day. And then there's the kind that develops during the day." Let's start with the former.

Foreknowledge of Weeding

When you know you're on a spot with a bunch of fish, but only the occasional big one, what do you do? "If you know going in it will be one of those weeding days, most of the time, but not always, you'll get the big bite first – in the morning, right off the bat, the first time you get to that spot," Lefebre said.

Most of the time his "flurry spots" are in grass, which he fishes with a jig. "Usually I go as light as I can, with a compact jig," he said. But since he knows the first bite might be big, he'll "go in there with 25-pound goat rope and a bigger jig" to make he doesn't have to worry about breaking a big fish off. "If you didn't know that, you might not be prepared."

As far as why the big bite comes first or early, he said: "I don't really know why. But I know that for me, that's the situation I'm always faced with. I'm usually flipping grass, fishing some kind of weedy point or something like that, close to deep water. And it just seems like in the morning, I always get one. Even on crankbait spots."

The Co-Angler Rush

If he just catches a small fish or two at the start of the day, he'll put the big stick down and get to weeding with his smaller jig. One reason not wasting too much time, he noted, is having a co-angler in the boat.

"We're talking about tournaments where you have a co-angler. That needs to go into your formula when you're fishing. It's hard to fish for the bigger ones right away when your co-angler is flipping a tube or Senko behind you 99 percent of the time.

"So my philosophy is to go for the big one right off the bat, but if it doesn't happen, I hurry up and downsize and try to milk out every bite I can. I want to get as many bites as I can before my co-angler gets them all throwing something smaller. A bigger fish will eat a smaller bait, we all know that."

No Foreknowledge of Weeding

On days when he sees a weeding situation developing, all he does is breaks out his mental timer. "First off I try to figure out the amount of sub-par fish I have to go through between a good one, and how long it's taking before I'm culling up," he said. "A lot of times you don't have to adjust much at all because the timeframe will be fine.

"Make a mental note and make sure you have enough time to do that. If you'll just be patient and keep fishing the way you are, you can come out with bigger fish."

If No Big Bites, Move (A Little)

What if you're weeding and weeding but you're not getting the big bites you expected? First, "get a limit," he said. From there "it's just experience.

"If you know you need 15 pounds and only have 9, it all comes down to whether you know the big ones are there. If you know the big ones are there and you're only catching the little ones, my last option would be to not move spots but to change depth.

"Like on Champlain on the second day. I started out bad on a good school of fish. I knew the good ones were there, so instead of aborting I just moved shallower, to some mats. (The bigger bass had been) out in the main grass and I never got a bite (in the mats) in practice, but I flipped a 1-ounce jig through a mat and that's where the big ones were.

"That's happened a lot of times," he noted. "That's just the most recent I can remember."

"When people say their fish shrunk, a lot of times they moved. If I'm catching a lot of little ones, usually I go shallower first – the shallowest cover closest to where that school was. If that doesn't work, I might go out on the edge of it.

"All my spots, whether creek channel bends or what, are always near deep water. That's always the case. I like to go out and check that deep water. From practice I already know where the points are, the key spots, so I'll go out and check that before I totally give up on it."

But if you go through all of that and you're still not on them? "If you know more are there and just can't catch them, leave and maybe come back when the conditions are different."

Weeding Gear

Lefebre said: "We're mostly talking about grass here because usually in weeds is where you find a school of fish like that. When I'm fishing a jig, to get bigger bites I don't necessarily switch to a bigger jig. The smaller fish seem to get the bait before it gets down to the bigger ones – it's the same way in grass as on structure. So I just go to a heavier jig.

"Usually I'm flipping a 5/16- or 1/4-ounce jig, so I just go to a 3/4-ounce or even 1-ounce Stanley jig. Usually I thread the chunk on, but when I go to a bigger (jig) I hook it on instead. That makes (the bait profile) a little longer, and it still falls super-fast. So it gets down to the bottom quicker.

When it comes to colors, "I'm a subtle guy," he said. "I like things closer to the color of the water so they're harder to see. But when I go to bigger jigs, I'll switch to a black or a white. I throw white a lot when I'm trying to catch bigger fish in a school. That color looks bigger to the fish."

  • Small jig gear – 7' 6" Rogue Rods rod (medium-heavy) for flipping, or 7' 11"(same action) for pitching or longer casts; Shimano Chonarch reel; 12-pound Triple Fish Fluorocarbon line; 3/16-ounce Stanley jig with a light-wire hook, or homemade 1/8- or 5/32-ounce jigs ("they're basically copies of a Stanley jig because Stanley doesn't make jigs that small"); Uncle Josh 101 or No. 11 pork, Zoom Critter Craw or small Zoom chunk. "I trim the skirts," he noted. "I cut them before I put them on, further than you can trim them when they're on the jig."

  • Big jig gear – 7' 6" flipping stick (medium-heavy), same reel, 20- and 25-pound Triple Fish Fluorocarbon line, Stanley 7/16- to 1-ounce jigs with a flipping hook. "I use smaller trailers on big jigs, like the No. 11 pork or a Super Chunk Jr., though sometimes I do use the bigger Super Chunk."

Notable

> When he's keying on big fish in grass areas, he likes to use little black marker buoys called Fishermen's Markers. "They're little tiny low-profile black buoys. When I catch a big one, I toss one in where he came out. A lot of times when you're weeding like that, you'll catch (bigger) fish from the same area. So I fish around that area. A lot of times I'll have 4-6 buoys out, all in a 100-yard circle. A lot of times you can go back to a buoy and catch another (good) one."

> On weeding through smallmouths, particularly on Lake Erie, he said: "When you're tube-fishing, everyone's doing it. If you're on a bunch of 2-pounders or even 3-pounders, (you need better fish) because those aren't big enough. Mizmo makes a tube called a Grande. It's not a fat tube. It's more of a long tube, like 5 inches long. I'll stuff a 3/4-ounce football head in one and it looks just like a bigger goby. It falls faster and gets down to the bottom," where the bigger fish are.