Early spring in Alabama when the lakes were muddy, my Dad would rig us up really stout cane poles with about 6 feet of 50# mono line and a 4/0 live bait hook and no weight. He'd put two or three large nightcrawlers on the hook in such a way that they really had a lot of action then he'd scull the piroque around stumps and flooded timber dipping the crawlers in and around the cover as we went. We caught some monster bass like that. The trick is as soon as you feel the bite you have to quickly pull the fish out of the water and into the piroque or they would hang up every time.