By Scott Norton
This time of year can lead to many situations from fishing super shallow or going offshore for some action. Summertime fishing can remind you of the winter pattern as well, especially when the dog days of summer show up. Many of us will experience the recreational boaters that will add frustration and pressure on the bass. I will explain some other options for Summertime fishing to counteract the problems that come with it.
Something to watch for in the early hours is the shad spawn on long tapering points. If you start early in the morning before the boaters hit the water, you can have an absolute great time during this period. When the sun starts to hit the water, the bass will either go deep on ledges or stay shallow under docks, grass, and brush. If you want to fish shallow you will want to use a pitching or flipping rod with a punch rig to get down in the junk. Another option is to skip lures under docks and shade lines. Now this can go into a whole different story but to getting to the point, using popping frogs, poppers, spitters, and stick baits are the most popular choices for this situation.
When bass go deep, the ledges and humps are where you want to concentrate. Using deep diving crank baits, jigs, magnum worms, flutter spoons, and lipless crank baits are a popular way to catch those bass. You will know when you see a ledge by the darker colored water. If you fish that color line you can cover a lot of water that way. Most of the time you can find your larger fish there since the forage is larger in size in the deep.
Now the dog days will come and everything either gets harder or shuts down the bite. This is due to the higher water temperatures along with a rising thermocline, which cause fish to suspend. You can still catch these fish and there are techniques to do so. You can either downsize or swing for the fences and go with giant swim baits. Lures that come to mind are spy-baits and swim baits. You need to find the sink rates for these baits so that you can count down the seconds to what depth you see the suspending fish. If you have a live scope, it does all the work for you. It is like fishing in a video game. You can actually watch your bait drop on the screen making it easy to get in their faces with it.
The best practice to avoid most or all traffic and have an amazing experience catching fish would be to fish at night during a new or full moon. The biggest fish wait for the calm of night to do the feeding. This is where you, as an angler, learn the importance of being stealthy. You can use a boat or kayak. There are advantages of both, like a boat covers more water, and a kayak is quiet and sneaky. The lures that come to mind are topwater lures, spinner baits, and a chatter bait. Any bait with a thump or vibration will work.
Try these different techniques and you will see a whole new world of possibilities. I hope this helps so have fun and happy hunting!
Scott Norton is a Western North Carolina native. Born in Asheville, N.C., he is a long-time hunter, angler and weekend warrior.