For many anglers, the lake becomes intimidating this time of year. There are several reasons for this. Part of it is pleasure boat traffic. For lakes like Chickamauga and Guntersville, grass adds thousand of acres of extra cover to take into consideration. And finally, there are the deep fish and the fact that you're no longer exclusively target-casting to anything on the bank that looks fishy. Those shallow tricks seem to quit working as soon as the sun gets up and the mercury rises.
This is the time of year when certain anglers flourish, the ones who have confidence in fishing deep - the ones who trust their electronics and head out to the ledges and creek channels - the ones not afraid to mop the lake floor with a jig and dig trenches with big crankbaits.
I'm admittedly not up to the highest offshore confidence level yet, but last summer I found some success away from the bank, and I want to share a few things I learned that may help those struggling to find their way away from the shoreline.
1. When there are large grass mats, imagine the area without them. If it's not an area you'd fish when the grass isn't there, it's probably wise to move on. There are certain areas like transitions, points, humps, channel swings, etc that you'll focus on any time of the year. Fish use these areas as ambush points and thoroughfares with or without the presence of grass. Keep going to those same areas and if there is grass there, consider it a bonus. Find the edges, which could be as far as 8-12' down depending on water clarity and go to work. Frogs and flukes are great for topwater action, and a big worm or swimbait can hammer them deep.
2. Your favorite shallow water baits can work in the summer - you just have to learn how to apply them in deep water situations. Usually it requires a slight adjustment. Plastics you may throw shallow weightless, or with light weights, in the spring may need to be upsized to 1/2-1 oz weights to help the bait get down to the strike zone quickly and add additional feel along the bottom, especially in wind. A Texas rig or shaky head may need to be traded for a drop shot to keep the bait visible along the top of grass and deep brushpiles. Heavy spinnerbaits can be slow-rolled down points and dropped along bluffs and ledges. Put the square bills away in favor of deep diving crank baits, and dig a trench with them down the points and humps, and off the tops of the ledge. If topwater is your thing, a spook or Sammy can be your best friend when you're around an active school and the bass are chasing baitfish.
Here's an example of one of my favorite techniques translating from shallow to deep: Last summer in a tournament, I was looking for a third fish to fill out my limit. It was getting late in the morning and the shallow bite had all but shut down. After working over some good docks and seawalls, I paddled out to this point on the inside of a creek channel bend. The point had a huge grass mat on it until about 10-11' of water where it tapered out to gravel bottom and dropped into the channel. I set up on the edge of the grass using my Lowrance, fan-casted the same 1/4 oz shaky head I was using shallow earlier, and landed a nice 16.75" bass to fill my limit. As you can see from the scale, I was sitting 150 feet from the bank and casting toward the middle rather than beating the bank. The channel marker was a perfect reference point as well.
3. Look for bait. All during the summer, bass will set up in the depths below bait. Finding the bait on a ledge is a good way to eliminate bad water when there are miles and miles of ledges like on Kentucky Lake and other Tennessee River impoundments. Look for the fish in a "haystack" formation or streaking through the bait clouds on your graph. These are active schools and can make for a great day of fishing.
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| Image source: scout.com |
