The words "bass" and "lily pads" are almost synonymous. From the time a child begins his fishing career, he learns that bass hang out around the lily pads waiting for a minnow, frog or crawfish to happen by. Lily-pad fishing requires a lot of patience because there are usually large areas of pads and it takes time to find the fish. Pads grow in the shallows, which makes the area sensitive and dictates a quiet approach.

Experience has shown that there are certain areas among the pads more prone to hold fish than are other areas. Concentrate your fishing on these key spots and then move on to the next set of pads. If you happen to establish a pattern in the pads, then you would naturally fish your pattern in every set of pads you could find.

You already know that anytime there is a change in the shoreline or the bottom composition changes, you could find bass. The same theory holds true when lily pads are present. There could be fish where the pads start and where they stop. Try the corners and then motor out to the first major point.

When you find small pockets reaching back among the pads, it can produce a fish or two and is worth a few casts. One or two points that extend farthest into the lake might also be good. Work either side of the point and back into those pads.

When you have found a pocket going back into the pads from the outer edge give it a good working over. Then you can move into the pocket and fish it. Any tiny offshoots warrant a cast or two.

Many assortments of lily pads have small circular openings completely surrounded by pads. It's tough to get a fish out of this type of cover, but you can certainly get them to hit. Cast back and across these openings and work the lure through them.

Finally, don't forget to consider the direction of the sun. Indentations on the shady side could harbor a fish. You can easily spend most of the day around a set of pads, but the better approach is to concentrate on the highlights and high spots and then move on to different structure or another set of pads.

The old standby for lily-pad fishing is a spoon, dressed with a skirt of nylon, pork rind or plastic. These weedless spoons come with weed guards that enable you to drag the lure across the surface of the water, or you can let it sink and snake it through the pad stems. You have a choice of colors in both the spoons and the tails, and it is sometimes worth experimenting with a couple of different color combinations such as a light spoon and then a dark spoon. When a bass hits this lure, come back on it hard and fast to set the hook; strike instantly.

Plastic worms are another good bait for lily-pad fishing, and they can be rigged with or without a slip-sinker. You can crawl a worm from lily pad to lily pad, pausing to let it rest and then slither off a particular pad; or you can use a slip-sinker and let it fall beneath the pads, fishing it like a weedless spoon. When a bass hits the worm in the pads, pause a second before setting the hook.

The weedless frog is an old-time lure that has taken its share of bass. It's basically top water and should be fished around the pads as well as on top of them. You can pop it up on a pad and let it sit there for several seconds before moving it off. Do this two or three times and a bass might surprise you when it slams the lure.

Of course spinner baits are a good bet in the lily pads because they are basically weedless and can be worked in a variety of retrieves. You might want to buzz the spinner across the top of the pads or allow it to sink. Combine both retrieves by buzzing and stopping until you find the formula. When the extended wire on the spinner bait comes back beyond the hook, it is much more weedless than spinner baits with shorter span wires.