Decker Lake aka Hydrilla City... techniques?

This is my rookie year with my own boat so I am encountering all sorts of things for the first time.

Saturday I made the trip down to Austin to Decker Lake. I have never fished hydrilla so prevalent and thick before. It all looks so bassy, but I was in no way expecting it to be as "bad" as it was in terms of super thick grass mats that were huge.

I do not experience this on the lakes really close to me. So what is your approach?

We tried a combination of texas rigged plastics (with heavy weights) on the matted grass lines but you had to work to stay on the edge. I also threw a frog all across the parts of several mats that had watery holes and brought it along the back and front edges. I got several blow ups and nice 3 lber right off the bat, then as the sun came up and burned off the cloud cover, that dried up.

We found a few more bites in the late morning on a soft plastic. Tried the rip rap and the reeds but nothing.

I simply didn't know what strategy to use on these conditions. Any advice on how to solve a puzzle like this in the future?

Spinnerbaits and flukes over the grass early, maybe mix in a ltiile swim jig. Once the sun gets up, throw light T rigs through the grass. Can usually catch em that way

Heavy Drop Shot
This will help you get that huge fish you have been looking for. Nothing will beat it. It works everywhere, shallow mat but best on the deepest grass you can find. They will be grouped up under the hollow. If the wind is blowing you can get in there on the upwind side; put the trolling motor up and big motor up and walk the boat across the mat by rocking the boat from side to side. In the heat of the day they are burred up in the grass.

Rig a heavy drop shot rig:
5.0 heavy super line hook. Tied on 50# braid. Use a Palomar knot. Leave the tag end at 5 inches long. Tie a 1 oz. weight to the tag end. I just tie a knot in the end of the tag, then use a overhand slip knot to attach the weight. It doesn't take much to keep it on. When I am fishing grass with hardwoods and it gets hung on the wood I can pull the weight off and come out with the hook and fish. The hook is about 4 to 5 inches above the weight, so the tails of the bait will hang down and cover the weight.
Use a Gene Lawrue Hoo Daddy Jr. in Watermelon Neon. This is not Watermelon/Red although they look almost the same; but it makes a great difference.

It will drop in the grass and come out of the grass with no hang-ups.
Fish vertical to slightly in front of the boat. Directly over the bait is best on the deepest grass. Drop it in slowly and soft so it is traveling slowly when it touches the bottom. The Bass hate anything sneaking in on them. Hold it there with a tight line for about 5 seconds without any movement. They don't want it bouncing up and down. This gives them time to swim through the hollow under the grass and nail the bait.
Vertical presentation and moving along the outer edge of the grass line, making pitches out in front of the boat so by the time it gets to the bottom you are directly over the bait for the hook set.
HAVE FUN!!

This is EXTREMELY helpful, Donald. Thanks for so much detail. I will save this and put it into action very soon.

X2!

The lake is fishing tough right now IMO. I fish decker more than any other lake, and we went yesterday and only caught 3 fish in 4 hours. I hooked a few that got off. We fished deep grass lines, the discharge, shallow grass, thick mats using frogs, flukes, weightless senkos with zero bites.

I caught my 2 fish on a ned rig near the dam where there's no much grass. I got a ton of bites from it too. My partner caught his fish on a soft body frog and he had quite a few blow ups at sunset on the frog.

A lot of those grass mats on decker are just too thick to fish

On that lake, flip the holes in the reeds back off the main line.......like nose the boat in and pitch 6-10ft in. You'll get bit.

Thanks Chris. I want another shot at Decker for redemption!