The heat of the summer sun leads bass to find some of the hardest to reach hiding spots all year, especially if grass is plentiful in your lake or river. When grass and grass mats are present, it can be an almost impossible search to find and catch big bass. Today, we are going to identify three objectives to identify, rig up, and effectively punch grass to find quality bass during the hot summertime.
Brutally strong fish and vicious topwater strikes make a fabulous combination. Here’s what you need to know to get in on exciting bluefish action this summer.
Pound for pound, bluefish are known as the hardest fighting inshore fish along the Northeast coast. Blues demand respect, punishing rods, destroying lures with knife-bladed teeth, ripping drags, and blowing up reels with powerful runs.
Ask other anglers: Topwater popping for any gamefish typically tops the list of exciting ways to fish. When you get topwater blow-ups from 10-, 15- and even 20-pound alligator bluefish, the adrenaline meter goes through the roof.
A drop shot rig is highly effective for catching bass during summer. However, the best specific rigging and presentations vary by situation. Read on and refine your summer drop-shotting game!
During the summer months, former Bassmaster Elite Series pro Frank Scalish always has at least one rod on his boat’s deck rigged with a drop shot. It matters not where in North America he happens to be fishing nor whether he’s after largemouth, smallmouth or spotted bass.
Summertime drop-shotting consistently keeps Scalish in touch with bass, especially when more aggressive tactics strike out. However, his drop-shot rig and how he works it vary depending on where he is fishing and the species of bass that swim there.
Paying attention to prevalent forage and selecting bait styles and colors to match findings can yield big dividends when you are crappie fishing.
“Itty Bit?” Gary Dollahon asked, with a tone that suggested he already knew the answer.
“Of course,” I replied.
Dollahon, who is brand manager for Bobby Garland Crappie Baits, had put us on some bridge crappie at Oklahoma’s Lake Eufaula, and an Itty Bit Slab Hunt’R was carrying the crappie-catching load for me. I was fishing a tandem rig, with a regular sized Baby Shad Swim’R in front and an Itty Bit trailing, and virtually every fish was hitting the diminutive offering. I didn’t count, but I’m guessing I caught 25 of 30 crappie during a couple of hours of bridge fishing, and all except one were on the Itty Bit Slab Hunt’R.
We saw schools of tiny minnows around every bridge pillar and around other cover throughout that day, so while I can’t get inside the fish’s heads, it makes sense that the 1 ¼-inch bait had greater appeal because it more accurately matched the forage fish the crappie had been eating.
Don’t buy into summer doldrums talk. Late summer offers some of the best jigging spoon action of the year, with a range of presentations prompting excellent fish-catching action.
First a disclaimer: If you don’t like multi-species fishing and always need to know what’s at the end of your line, the summer spoon bite might not be for you. While you can target stripers, white bass or hybrids based on waterways and locations and typically will catch more of the target species than fish of other kinds, it’s not uncommon to catch 10 species in a day with a summer spoon-fishing approach, and any fish that wallops a spoon could turn out to be a 1-pound crappie or a 50-pound flathead.
That noted, jigging spoons provide spectacular opportunities to catch the “true bass” species (stripers, white bass and striper/white bass hybrids) during late summer, when these fish are chasing big schools of shad and herring in open water. Jigging spoons “match the hatch” very effectively and have built-in versatility that makes them solid matches for most summer scenarios with these species.
If you choose the right lure styles for the situation and go at the right times, summer topwater fishing can be outstanding. Here’s what you need to know.
Late summer can be a tumultuous time to fish due to ultra-hot temps and uncooperative fish, which seem to turn their nose up to every presentation possible. The one saving grace is the topwater action you can find early in the morning or late in the evening, when bass have their short feeding periods. These periods give way to some intense action, if the right lures are chosen for the given situation. Detailed below are my top picks, by action, for late summer topwater bassin’!
Learn the techniques of four crankbait trolling experts and increase your summer crappie fishing success.
“And the Bandits Stroll Away” might sound like a country song title. Instead, it’s what Arkansas crappie guide Payton Usrey tells boat guests when the final trolling lure is in the water and it’s time for fish-catching action.
Bandits are a brand of shad-shaped crankbaits, popular with Usrey and scores of avid crappie anglers who enjoy summer trolling for the species. They rattle and have a wide wobble when retrieved.
Strolling, in fishing talk, refers to various slow-trolling techniques in which a boat’s electric trolling motor is used to move the watercraft along in a deliberate, controlled manner for presenting lures.
Tap into the expertise of a veteran Maine outfitter and learn how to increase your success catching smallmouth bass.
“Only 99 more,” Doug Teel half-jokingly said as we released the first smallmouth bass of an afternoon. I’d spent enough time on the Penobscot River with Teel to know 100 smallmouths in a half-day outing would be a reasonable notion, so it became the goal without further discussion, and we counted down, with every smallmouth landed. The fish were still biting well when the count hit zero, and we had plenty more time we could have fished. However, we set down our rods, content with 100 even, and headed for dinner.
Teel operates Northridge Outfitters, a full-service outfitter in Maine, and turns his focus primarily to the Penobscot River’s fabulous smallmouth bass fishery through the summer. He has been fishing the river for decades and has an astounding understanding of river smallmouth behavior and how to tap into the best action.
We talked with Teel to glean his expertise and compiled six top tips that will help you catch more river smallmouth bass.
The fish pictured above isn’t the largest I have caught in my short span of searching for these beautiful green fish, but it is by-far the most memorable bass I will ever catch due to the story behind it.
