It's late summer where you fish, and on Saturday, you head straight to your ledge that's produced a solid limit for the past month. You get a few early bites, then nothing. What gives?
You're probably right on the front end what Andy Morgan calls the breakup. He lives on the Tennessee River system and after watching the cycle repeat itself year after year, has learned how to adjust to the breakup.
School's Out
"I live on Chickamauga, which is a Tennessee River lake, and I spend a lot of the summer fishing there, plus Nickajack, Watts Bar, Guntersville, Pickwick and Wilson," Morgan said.
"I fish pretty much all of them this time of year, and the dominant summertime pattern is when these fish are on their summertime homes off the edge of the river channel, or off deeper points."
He noted the fish are schooled and hunt in wolf packs. But things change quickly sometime in mid- to late-August.
"The fish all of a sudden break up and start to single out more. A lot of these fish will get on wood – old stumps on the river channel, or stumps and brush in bays and creek mouths. I call it the brushpile month because a lot of local fishermen will start to dominate tournaments on manmade brushpiles."
Look for Wood
Once the breakup starts and the fish peel out of the school, Morgan starts to hunt wood. It might be wood somewhere on the ledge where the schools of fish used to be, but a little shallower. Or it might be wood in the main lake, but nearer to bays and creek mouths. Another key spot he hits is the edge of flats on main-lake points.
"Several times in August, I've caught them on flats," he noted. "The flats come up to 4 or 5 feet of water, and single fish will get on the edge – on an isolated log or stump. Or with a grass lake like Guntersville, they might hunt the edge of the grass."
The key is that he's now targeting loner fish on isolated cover shallower than where he'd been fishing. "It seems like the big fish are able to dominate a single piece of cover more than a 2-pounder could. Your numbers decrease, but your average size gets a little bigger."
Attack Weapons
Morgan noted that his primary bait during the breakup is a Texas-rigged worm. It allows him to cover water, but it also gets down into the cover quickly and is relatively snag-free.
"I primarily use a 7 1/2-inch Zoom Mag II worm, usually in plumb or blackberry. I Texas-rig it with a 3/8-ounce Tru-Tungsten weight and a 4/0 Owner or 5/0 Gamakatsu straight-shank, offset hook.
"I fish the worm pretty fast, and more or less short-hop it," he added. "You kind of hop it off bottom and let it fall down on slack line, but you keep it moving with a pretty steady rhythm. You can cover water pretty fast."
A close second choice is a casting jig. He uses either a 1/2- or 3/4-ounce model, and alternates between a War Eagle and homemade jig.
"You want a light weedguard – not a heavy flipping guard – and a casting-style head. Usually green-pumpkin or brown are the best colors, along with black/blue. The darker the water, the darker my jig. And my trailer is always a Zoom Super Chunk Jr.."
One last tip from Morgan: "A lot of times we'll pick up a crankbait this time of year – either a Norman Deep Little N or XCalibur Fat Free Shad. We get up on the edges of flats with 12- to 15-pound line and crank a little bit of the shallower water.
"Again, it's the flats near the mouths of creeks. Try to bump some wood in there and maybe a rocky bottom."
