Hot summer fishing
These trustworthy tactics keep fish biting until autumn
Fishing is tough and unpleasant in mid summer, but with the right tactics and locations, you can catch your favorite fish consistently until fall.
LARGEMOUTH BASS
Black bass, as anglers call them, are the most sought-after species in Arkansas. Northern-strain largemouths are lethargic in hot weather, but Florida-strain largemouths remain active and aggressive.
The Arkansas Big Bass Bonanza, a popular big bass tournament that the Arkansas Hospitality Association held for decades on the Arkansas River in August, demonstrated that big native largemouths could be caught in large numbers from one end of the state to the other. Most of the bass that anglers caught in the Big Bass Bonanza were caught methodically, presenting jigs or soft plastic lures on Texas rigs to fish holding tight to cover.
Billy McCaghren, a former competitor on the Bassmaster Elite Series Tour, demonstrated the summertime proclivities of native largemouths at Lake Conway. McCaghren conducted a clinic on teacup-target fishing by flipping jigs to bass holding tight to cypress trees. The fish suspended on the shady sides of the trees. McCaghren caught them one by one going from one tree to the next.
Even in the heat of summer, largemouth bass and spotted bass go on feeding frenzies throughout the day on big reservoirs. Tyrone Phillips of Little Rock put on another clinic at Greers Ferry Lake when the quality of its fishing was at a low ebb. We spent half a day during the Independence Day weekend fishing in Hurricane Bay, a large inlet off the Narrows. Every half hour or so, schools of small bass chased schools of shad to the surface.
Logic would tell you to throw a topwater lure among them. Instead, Phillips threw a strawberry colored worm on a drop shot rig. The drop shot took the worm quickly to the bottom where the bigger bass fed at a more leisurely pace. We caught a lot of fish up to about 2 pounds.
Bass on the Arkansas River are surprisingly active on the Arkansas River in the summer at the right times and places. One trip in late August comes to mind with George Cochran near Pine Bluff. The river was high due to heavy rainfall upstream. The Corps of Engineers had the gates open at the lock and dam, and excess water flowed through a series of side pools.
Bass concentrated in those side pools, and they bit almost everything Cochran and I threw at them, from square-bill crankbaits to Texas-rigged worms. We caught bass in smaller numbers at the mouths of coves and backwaters.
During a hot, low-water lull in mid summer, Rick Ellis and I caught bass off the Arkansas River at the backs of feeder creeks and backwaters. The biggest fish were against rock barriers.
SMALLMOUTH BASS
Undoubtedly the hottest fishing for brown bass is in the spring and fall, but much of my best fishing has been in the hottest weather of summer.
I like to go to the driest stretches of the Buffalo River and other streams, where the flow is so low that you have to drag through rapids and riffles. During long periods of low water, baitfish and crawdads are confined to constricted pools. Smallmouth bass don’t have to work as hard for a meal, and they feast.
Instead of floating downstream, I tie a canoe or kayak to my belt loop and pull it slowly upstream. I fish slowly, casting a soft plastic lure at every angle.
It helps a lot that recreational boat traffic — canoes, kayaks and their rowdy pilots — is absent from these waters at this time. Absent the commotion, smallmouth bass feed freely throughout the day.
Interestingly, smallmouth bass hit any lure at every level of the water column in mid summer. I get the most bites on bottom contact lures, probably because I fish them slowly and cast them precisely to specific targets. However, I also catch a lot of fish on topwater lures. We write a lot about our success with the Whopper Plopper, but I catch more and bigger fish with an Excalibur Zell-Pop, a small lure with a concave face. It looks like a baitfish in distress when you skitter it across the surface.
By accident, Ray Tucker and I learned that stream smallmouths also bite big jerkbaits in the summer. That covers the middle depths, and at the right times, it catches big bass.
Some of our big lakes have smallmouth bass, too. Our best smallmouth lakes are Bull Shoals, Beaver, Norfork and Greers Ferry. Smallmouths also inhabit Lake Gillham, an impoundment of the Cossatot River in Southwest Arkansas.
Kevin Short, a longtime Bassmaster Elite Series pro, demonstrated how to catch smallmouths in mid summer at Greers Ferry by casting rust-colored jigs to isolated rocks well offshore in the shadow of Sugarloaf Mountain.
On Beaver Lake, you can catch monster smallmouths with buzzbaits off pea gravel banks at sunset. My favorite place for this is in the Prairie Creek area, which has long stretches of pea gravel as well as bluffs and other rocky structure that smallmouths love. Catching big smallmouths on topwater lures is one of life’s sublime pleasures.
STRIPED BASS
Stripers are notoriously hard to catch in the summertime because they descend to deep water to escape the heat. They often suspend right at the thermocline. They are very selective about what they will eat, and they refuse to work hard for a meal. You have to put a lure in front of them, which requires special gear that most anglers don’t have.
Dr. Bobby McGehee of Little Rock has the equipment to catch these fish, and he does so with great enthusiasm. McGehee trolls marabou jigs on downriggers, a manual crane that uses a weight that looks like a small cannonball to get a bait deep and keep it deep. When a fish takes the lure, the impact and tension of the strike detaches the line from the weighted line, allowing the angler to fight the fish freely.
Even though this is a trolling technique, it is a precise presentation. The lure must troll at exactly the right depth. Stripers prefer to move up to attack prey. If the lure travels below the depth at which stripers are suspended, they will ignore it. They won’t attack if it’s too high, either. Presenting a lure at the proper depth requires good electronics and an ability and experience to read and interpret them.
Even in the hottest part of summer, stripers often feed on the surface at dawn. For a golden half hour or so, you can catch them with topwater lures on flats near major channels. My favorite morning topwater spot for stripers is at the mouth of Crystal Springs.
PROTECT YOURSELF
Melanoma is a constant threat for people that spend time outdoors, and anglers are especially at risk because of their constant exposure to sunlight. Sunblock with high concentrations of titanium dioxide or zinc oxide is extremely effective. Reapply often.
Dr. Hayden Franks, a noted Little Rock dermatologist, also recommends wearing long-sleeve, SPF rated fishing shirts, fishing gloves, a gaiter that covers the neck and face, and a wide-brimmed hat, preferably with a neck cover.
Keep well hydrated with water and an electrolyte supplement like Gatorade.