Patrick Pierce

Flipping Out In Summer

---

By David Hunter Jones
Staff Writer, BASS Publications

Flipping may be the best way to bag a heavy stringer during the hot months, but it takes more than a heavy rod and a big weight. Florida pro Patrick Pierce knows lots of the intricacies of flipping you may be overlooking.

On paper, flipping and pitching sound simple. Get the funky "casts" down, find some grass, and start filling the livewell. But as Jimmy Houston once said, "If bass fishing were that easy, it wouldn't be a sport, it would be a habit."

Patrick Pierce's relationship with flipping, however, can be classified as an addiction rather than just a habit.

Combing the grass

Bass are like people in some regard. They're apex predators, don't like to be out in the sun when they don't have to be, have some places they're more comfortable than others and like it when their food is brought to them. Grass offers a bass all of this. It's the La-Z-Boy of the lake.

When you're in a lake inundated with grass, it can be difficult to identify bass-holding grass from bass-free grass. Pierce says to look for ambush points that have current flowing by them.

"Points catching wind seem to be key spots to flip if there is no natural current in your lake," he says. "The bass will sit in there and wait for something to wash by. It's a reaction bite."

If there is no current at all, he looks for irregularities in the grass such as an indentation, a thin spot, a place where two types of grass mix or bait flipping on top. Once he has found fishy-looking grass, it's time to pattern the fish.

"I always start at the outer edge to 12 inches in, then I go to the middle portion, then I'll flip a foot or two away from the bank," he says. "I try to make myself make three pitches before I move the boat."

All in the details

Flipping is fishing's close quarter combat. You are sneaking up on fish and leveraging the element of surprise against them, like a ninja.