By David A. Brown
Special to BassFan
(Editor's note: The BassFan staff will be off for the remainder of the 4th of July holiday week. A new First Cast story will not be published until next week.)
When summer swelter has you drenched in sweat by 9 a.m., you gotta consider how the heat affects largemouth bass. The old saying: “fish still have to eat” certainly holds true, but these fish have notoriously low tolerances, so the higher their creature comfort, the higher their aggression level.
The key here is targeting the places where fish find more favorable conditions, along with feeding opportunities.
“If you related it to what you would want; in the hot part of the summer, you want shade, you want your food easy to (reach),” said Bassmaster Elite Series pro Jason Christie.
California pro Ken Mah agrees and offers this allusion: “If you’re in a parking lot in the middle of summer and someone puts up a (pop-up tent), where will most of the people go? They’ll get under that tent because it’s cooler.”
Essentially, a key element of summer bass fishing involves finding and exploiting the chill-out spots. Each fishery’s different, but a handful of examples will guide the search.
> Shade: Don’t overthink this most obvious one; but also don’t overlook any shady scenarios with at least a foot or two of water. Cypress trees, overhanging willows, docks, lily pads, bluff walls, bridge shadow lines – move with the day’s shifting sun angles to stay in those chill-out zones.
Christie’s a fan of Booyah Pad Crasher frogs and Heddon Zara Spooks for the directly accessible shadow pockets. Elsewhere, flipping, jig-skipping, spinnerbaits and swimbaits serve the cause.
Mah’s No. 1 shade-maker is a weed mat. Topped-out grass is good, but adding blown-in water hyacinth rafts ensures spacious caverns below, as does a raft of dead tules jammed into a live tule stand. Punching is the way to go here and Mah finds lower tide stages preferable, as they move fish out to the shade edges and shrink the zone of likelihood.
Shade pockets are always worth a cast.
> Depth: The deeper a fish goes, the less surface temperatures impact the water column. Generally, the fish will want to hold over or around some type of structure, from offshore bars and river channel ledges to brush piles and bamboo “cane” piles.
Bait selection merits seasonal and regional consideration, but you can’t go wrong with crankbaits, swimbaits, football jigs and big spinnerbaits for offshore structure. When the focus turns to brush piles and cane piles, you’ll fare well with jerkbaits, big worms and even topwaters or fluke-style baits (particularly on blueback herring lakes.)
Also, a big flutter spoon can make magic happen when bass are following gizzard shad along the edges of deep points.
> Moving Water: When hot weather has the fish sluggish, Christie puts a lot of stock in current seams. Recognizing these as ribbons of lively conditions where baitfish often gather and bass feel frisky, he expects big results with a squarebill or a Bandit 200 crankbait.
Elsewhere, culverts, storm drains and little waterfalls are always worth a summer look. Also, tailraces can be gold mines of opportunity for weather-weary fish.
For the latter, publicly accessible generation schedules and recent rain patterns offer clues as to when your local dam will increase/decrease its outfall. More water movement amplifies the cooling, oxygenation and feeding benefits, as well as boat-handling considerations.
Given the dynamics of moving-water scenarios, bait options are many. Depth and current strength guide the decision, but you’ll typically find baitfish profiles like topwaters, swimbaits, jerkbaits and underspins attracting plenty of attention.
> Natural Springs: Cooler water rising from underground sourcing is a straight-up life center. Often brimming with food sources, these areas of high energy impose magnetic appeal to bass. Moving baits like bladed jigs and lipless crankbaits fare well in these scenarios. Christie’s favorite – a 4-inch Scottsboro swimbait on a 3/8- to 1/2-ounce swimbait head.
Frogs are a good option for probing shaded areas.
Given the typically rocky nature of a bottom fissure through which a spring flows, get something down there and tick or bump across the hard stuff. Crankbaits, football jigs, or even a Carolina rig – show those fish different looks and they’ll quickly define the day’s preference.
> Mud Lines: Serving fish like a beach umbrella, an awning, a tent; silty flow offers something to break the sunlight. From recent rains loosening muddy or clay banks, to windblown current and even heavy boat traffic, mud lines have multiple origins, but they can offer summer bonanzas – especially when they overlap fish-friendly structures that may be overlooked during the heat of the day.
Remember, the strike zone shrinks in lower visibility, so target precision matters even more. Christie likes a BOOYAH Covert spinnerbait with double Colorado blades, one of which will be a high-vis red. Bladed jigs, lipless crankbaits and squarebills will also deliver.
> Tide Changes: Generally, bass anglers favor falling tides, as they pull bait out of shallow hidey holes and position predators for peak feeding. That truth doesn’t vanish in hot weather, but after a slack low tide turns the shallows into a sauna, the incoming tide’s freshening effect is undeniable.
Rising water increases the inhabitable space beneath and amid shallow vegetation from grass mats to floating hyacinth masses to random rafts of dead reeds or tules. Again, it’s the cool shadows from which summer bass feed.
As Mah previously pointed out, high water means more area to cover; however, that rising water expands the opportunity for deeper fish to pull into the cover. Good thing here is that the compacting effect of falling water draining a mat’s shallower sections reverses on the incoming cycle. This opens up a lot of the inner holes, gaps and lighter cover for frogging efforts.
A Few Tips for Summer
Christie offers a few closing pointers on maximizing those chill-out spots.
Step On the Gas: Christie’s an accomplished flipper and he’ll definitely pull out the big rod to pick apart a juicy target. But when he’s searching, he’s moving with a pep in is step.
“I think in the summertime you want to be moving the bait,” Christie said. “You want to trigger a reaction more than feed it to them. I want to be able to move fast and cover a lot of water.”
When It’s Right: During the summertime, Christie expects a good morning and evening bite, but he prefers the hotter midday period because it concentrates fish in those cooler areas.
“You may have a stretch of bank that’s 500 yards, with three or four shade trees on it. If there’s gonna be a fish in there, you can hit those trees and be gone.”
How They Relate: Christie points out that the higher the sun gets, the tighter the fish will hold to their preferred chill-out spots. That being said, Christie stresses the mobility factor.
“These fish travel a lot this time of year, based on bait and trying to find shade and current,” he said. “One shade tree might not be that good at 11 o'clock, but it might be awesome at 1.”
