Heavy Cover Lure Suggestions Wanted

[JC]

As I am a recycled bluegill fanatic, I have been trying to use this season to re-learn some of the things I used to do in order to catch sunfish.

Where I live, large fish are few and far between and access to fish at all is becoming scarce. Still I am finding a few fish from time to time. Most of the areas where I fish have a lot of structure and the fish are well protected by all the hazards.

I am often on foot and since my area is limited, I usually resort to fishing with bait. Still I have done some limited experimentation with lures.

In the attached pic, there are a couple sections of nightcrawlers as well as a piece of an artificial bait from Berkley called Gulp bloodworms.

Coming from a saltwater fishing background, I was familiar with these as bloodworms are one of the best local saltwater and brackish baits. Much of my bluegill fishing is in tidal waters, so I decided to try them.

Towards the end of a recent trip, I removed the bobber, put on a small piece of Gulp bloodworm and casted it into heavy cover. I let it either sink on its own, or just gave it short twitches. The fish were on it like ugly on ape.

This is encouraging as I have had problems fishing jigs or other deep lures due to snags. My question is does anyone else have suggestions on what is effective yet snag resistant when fishing for sunfish in harsh environments?

I am using 4 and 6 lb test, fishing around stumps, cypress trees, lily pads, tree limbs and other obstructions. The water clarity is very low as the water is darker than tea, almost as brown as coffee. This is due to tannic acid from cypress trees. Sometimes I can see a foot or more, but other times its even less than that, so often the fishing is "blind" as far as knowing where obstructions are.