Become An Expert On Punching Mats For Bass

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Ken Mah looked as relaxed as I’d ever seen him. Comfortably perched with a foot on his trolling motor pedal, he made pendulum swings toward a broad hyacinth mat, occasionally reaching high to place his bait exactly where he wanted it.

Over and over, the seasoned angler from Elk Grove, Calif., repeated his patiently diligent routine as casual conversation broke the tension. If you didn’t know better, you might call the whole thing kind of boring.

Then, without warning, Mah’s posture dramatically changed. He took a big step back, reeled down and did his best to break the 7-foot 11-inch, heavy-power rod in his hands. Mah punched, a big bass punched back and the fight was on.

“With the exception of the dead of winter, punching is always something that I’m looking to do,” Mah says. “It’s one of those opportunistic deals, because if a bass has the right cover that provides them with security and shade, they’ll often move to that spot. An overhead mat attracts the food chain and it gives fish ambush points. Usually, the biggest, meanest, ready-to-bite fish are sitting in a location like that. A lot of things come together, and to not take 3 minutes to make a few flips, I think people are missing out on an opportunity.”

Driving a plastic bait through heavy vegetation might seem like a brutish pursuit with little need for precision, but the calculations are many. Here’s a look at the punching particulars.

IDEAL HABITAT

Having punched up big fish everywhere from the California Delta to Clear Lake to the Columbia River, Mah breaks his punching targets into two categories. First is floating cover such as hyacinth and pennywort rafts, dead tules and even the “trash mats” formed by random aquatic plants, driftwood and actual garbage like plastic bottles and other flotsam.

The second type is rooted vegetation such as hydrilla, which often tops out and forms a canopy with open caverns below. Delta anglers typically assume at least part of their day will entail punching the vast vegetation options, while other waterways offer more isolated and infrequent scenarios. Whatever the case, Mah rarely passes on punchable cover.

“At the Columbia River, there are a lot of scenarios where a person can punch,” Mah says. “I don’t know that it’s a predominant pattern, but during an event that I won there in 2022, I flipped a 1-ounce weight in a bunch of sparse laydown tules and caught a 5 1/2-pounder. I went punching for the next three hours and never got another bite.”

The good thing about punching is that it can be an all-day pattern. Adjust with the variables and you can keep yourself on fish. For example, when Alex Klein won a major tournament on the Delta in 2023, he spent the entire event in one main area of the San Joaquin River, where he caught several key fish by punching a Big Bite Baits College Craw through mats with a 1 1/2-ounce weight. The key characteristics of the spots where Klein caught bass were good water flow hitting the grass and proximity to deep water.

“I don’t run the tide. I don’t understand that [technique] like the locals do,” Klein says. “I stayed in one area where I had some history from a previous visit. Every morning, I would throw a bladed jig until they quit biting, then I’d pick up a punch stick. I didn’t get many bites punching, but when I did, they were the right ones.”

INFLUENCING FACTORS

Fish positioning will vary with conditions. Sunny skies send them into the darkest reaches, while low-light periods and cloudy days might find them closer to the edge. Moreover, tidal environments see fish moving deeper into a mat with higher water and pulling to the outer third on falling water.

Mah adds seasonality to the mix, as spring prompts big females to move shallow for egg-developing warmth. The fish need safe cover (on the Delta, a bass may be vulnerable to sea lion predation) with feeding opportunities, and mats check both boxes.

Wind also plays a role in punching opportunity by blowing the floating stuff here and there. That might be right across the cove or half a mile down the canal, but when the cover leaves, so do the fish.

In addition to the relocation headache, Oakley, Calif., angler Mike Birch says a windward bank that holds its mats in place will find them tightly compacted. This won’t necessarily render the cover unfishable, but tighter cover requires greater punching effort (see below).

RIG UP RIGHT

“I really believe for the most part that punching is a reaction technique,” says Mah, highlighting the home-invasion factor that typically yields crushing bites. “If the bait presentation is right, that fish doesn’t have time to think. It just reacts. Early in the year, I like to punch with a black-and-blue jig with a 3-inch Big Bite Baits Yo Mama in the flipping blue or sapphire blue color. The vegetation is not as thick, so anytime I can get away with flipping a jig, I’ll do that because fish moving up want a big, easy profile and a jig fits that.”

Since Reaction Innovations introduced the original Sweet Beaver, with its ribbed body, tapered head, spear-like tail and modest flappers, most bait companies have created their own version of a “beaver” bait. Ideal for penetrating cover and mimicking crawfish, bluegill and shad profiles, these baits handle most of the punching work.

When Birch is fishing a windy day, he’ll go to a slimmer bait without side appendages. Preferring a Strike King Rodent or Rage Menace, he knows these more streamlined baits are more likely to slip through a compacted mat without catching on the side.

“The smaller profile baits will allow you to get through sometimes without moving up in 1/4-ounce weight increments,” Birch says.

Mah rigs his Big Bite Baits Yo Mama on an appropriately sized Owner Jungle HD flipping hook. He finds that snelling the straight-shank hook creates a cantilever action on the hookset that forces the point into ideal snaring position. Also, this helps eliminate a common punching issue—an in-line pull in which that heavy weight pops a fish’s mouth open before the hook can set.

“If they’re finicky or not biting as well, I’ll downsize to a Big Bite Baits College Craw or a Missile Bait Missile Craw [for the jig trailer or Texas rig],” Mah says. “For your weight selection, you have to experiment, but use the lightest that you can be efficient with. If I’m using a 1-ounce, and I can get through the cover eight out of 10 times, That’s pretty efficient.”

Birch notes that compacted mats might require several changes when a falling Delta tide squeezes them ever tighter. To this point he’ll keep a lineup comprising 1 1/4-, 1 1/2-, 1 3/4- and 2-ounce weights on his deck.

“You might be in an area where you were punching a 1 1/4-ounce weight the previous day in calm conditions, and the next day a 1 1/2 won’t get through,” Birch says. “The fish are still there, and you may be able to catch better quality fish because a lot of guys are going to go right by [the compacted mats] with a lighter weight.”

PERFECT PITCH

Presentation styles have little variation, other than how far you pitch or how high you reach to clear tall tules or other obstructions. The only real difference is palming or free-swinging the bait. In the simplest terms, the latter’s time efficiency makes it the most common technique, while the former typically gets the call for very precise presentations when holding the bait steadies the aim.

“I always look at sun direction, water flow, shade and depth,” Mah says. “When I look at a mat, no matter where it is sitting in any particular part of a lake, I calculate all of those things and envision where those fish want to be. Some people just flip the edges or bomb way back into the mat, but I’ll envision where that fish wants to be and do everything in my power to put my bait in that spot.”

Spend time formulating a logical plan and don’t fire until you understand the target. Punching, by definition, is intrusive, but don’t waste a fish’s tolerance with an ill-planned approach.

“That first cast to that key location is the most crucial,” Mah says. “If that fish hasn’t heard 10 weights hitting the top of the mat, and it’s been sitting there for hours, it’s going to be a lot more relaxed than a fish in a mat that’s been hit by several anglers before you. Take your time and figure out where a fish might be sitting, because making that perfect pitch is the key to increasing your chances of getting bit.”

HUE CLUES

• Tips and tricks for choosing the right bait color.

On brighter days, more natural colors like green pumpkin and watermelon excel. For dimmer days, black-and-blue typically earns its props. Exceptions to those rules of thumb follow a few guidelines.

First, a white- or pearl-colored bait might serve you well when you’re noticing a lot of shad in the area. Also, some anglers will use their landing net to invert a mat section to check for crawfish and match their color. This tactic is especially effective with sprayed mats, whose decomposing plant matter attracts more craws.

California punching pro Ken Mah says he’ll often go with an aggressive, predation-based color scheme.

“There are times when I’ll go to a bluegill-type bait,” Mah says. “In the summer, I’ll go to Big Bite Baits Fighting Frog in the candy grass color, and I’ll change my punch skirt to a bluegill color. I do think that bluegills become a predominant bait that those bass will seek and eat under those mats or in the deep vegetation. I did that when I won the BAM Pro Tour at Thermolito Afterbay. I had a greenish, chartreuse sungill type of skirt and a candy grass-colored Missile Baits Craw Father. It looked a lot like a real bluegill.”

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