fishing heavy weeds and muck

[fish_4_any]

I have a local lake that actually has panfish: crappie, gills and sun perch. The most activity I see is in the thickest, nastiest "unfishable" masses of weeds and muck. The only way I have gotten a strike was with a topwater plug moved very slowly over the muck before it got too gummed up.

I know there are fish in the mass but I can't punch through without spooking everything out, and I see them bolt in all directions if I try to clear any type of entry point.

What is the best approach to fishing this type of cover/mass mess? Anacharis, elodea all tangled together with some sort of slime/algae on the surface entangled in the tops that reach the surface. Only thing I can think of is to clear a fishable hole in the middle and then come back some time later to see if anything has come back into the mass.

I have tried fishing the outskirts and edges to no avail. The fish hit the surface in the middle of the gunk, some pretty good sized ones.

[Ketchn]

we have "cleared" large areas before in the masses of vegetation on smaller waters and it works pretty well .
you have to return after it settles though and in the summer it comes back quickly

[DockShootinJack]

Lot of the guys would rake open some holes in the mats and then come back a day or so later and fish them. Lot of the fisherman on the delta would do that with the cat tails, clear out a hole and swing a bait in there with a long pole. They would work along hitting those spots until they had a limit

[chaunc]

Whitey Outlaw did a video with Russ Bailey about this same problem. Check YouTube for Brushpile fishing Santee Cooper with Whitey Outlaw. Was a really good show.