Summer adds more sunlight and warmer water which starts the underwater vegetation to growing and showing to the surface. When this happens schooling bait-fish seek the vegetation for cover, then the post-spawn Smallmouth Bass start hanging out in these areas for food all throughout the day. Some of the best lures include spinners such as Mepps and twitch minnow baits.
Top water lures, usually in the mid-morning hours is excellent on calm mornings. Any lure that floats and can cause ripples can be good when the water is glass-calm. If the fish are active on these faster moving lures, keep throwing them. If it slows down try using Bass jigs and plastic baits. Live bait works well year round for the Smallmouth even though the action can be so fast that it is a lot of work re-baiting all the time.
Summer Smallmouth Bass Fishing Tips
If you can’t find the Bass in the vegetation areas then move out to deeper weed line edges away from shore. Move out to underwater rock shelves or rock points.
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Crank baits can be an excellent selection, especially along these deeper edges using Berkley Frenzy crank baits or Rapala Shad Raps are popular in deeper water. The bass may move in and out of the weeds all day long so be ready to move around to keep on them.
Deep Water Fishing For Bass
When Smallmouth do go deep, they seem to like the 30 to 40 foot depth range. If you are fishing deep water in late summer or early fall, then bouncing a worm colored Tube Jig off the bottom also works real well. When fishing shallow rock shoals, yellow or white spinner baits as well as shallow diving crank baits have proven deadly.
In our smaller Ontario Canadian Shield Lakes that we fish, like Sumach, we are prone to using a big worm on a Bass hook with no weight and just let the worm slowly sink down to the bottom along a ridge.
When you are drifting over the ridge, just jig it towards you about 2 or 3 feet and then let the worm sink again, repeating this step several times. When the Bass hits the worm, let off on your bail and let the Bass swim 3 to 5 seconds and then set your hook. Real worms work the best but tube jigs will also work.
The best summer Smallmouth Bass fishing tips focus on finding the fish in deep, cool waters.