Early Bite Key In Summer

"Summer is the time of year when it's critical to get an early bite going," says Larry Nixon. For him that means "a topwater or a sweet spot where you can pull in and catch a few quick fish on a worm.

"Usually one of the two will work, and to have a good day fishing it's important to have one of those two patterns going," he says.

Early Lures

Nixon first tries a topwater. That means "a Strike King Spit-N-King or other chugger-type bait if fish are close to cover." If he has to pull bass out of 6- 15 feet, he'll use a bigger walking bait like a Lucky Craft Sammy or Zara Spook.

If that doesn't work he "immediately" switches to a 7-inch power worm, "rigged Texas-style to start with. Sometimes a Carolina rig is better, but I've found that when fish are on little spots, a Texas rig is better." His favorite worm colors are grape/green flake (junebug) or black grape. If the water is clear, he uses various greens.

Quick Bite

Make the early bite count because it's quick, Nixon adds. "Usually the fish will talk to you a little. You'll go from getting strikes consistently to boom, it's over." Typically that happens around 7:00-7:30 in the morning.

What do you do then? "If you have a good feel about what's going on with the fish, you can move out a little deeper to a ledge or dropoff and maybe catch a few more up until 9:00," Nixon says. Again, you'll know that bite is over when "all of sudden you can't get a bite. Then it's time to change baits and move on."

Go Deep

After 9:00 on a hot summer day, the bite "gets really tough," Nixon notes. Now "you have to try to get a reflex strike out of the fish."

In lakes with deep structure like ledges and dropoffs, Nixon likes to hop a jig or slow-roll a big spinnerbait. His lures of choice are a 1/2- or 1/4-ounce Strike King jig in black/blue or brown, and a 3/4-ounce modified Strike King spinnerbait (chartreuse and white). To modify the spinnerbait into a single- spin, he removes the front blade and puts a size 4 1/2 or 5 gold willowleaf blade on the back.

If a lake doesn't have as many quality bass, he sometimes will fish a plastic worm deep (instead of a jig) because "a worm will catch more bass."

Night Prowling

If your lake doesn't have deep structure, Nixon suggests fishing at night. "Go to brushpiles, drops and shallow ledges. The bass will really feed when the moon phase is right. A week prior to the full moon is good, but the best week is the week after the full moon -- from midnight until 8:00 a.m."

"The lake's empty," Nixon says. "Nobody's out there but you, and the fish are biting."