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Slow Summer Smallie Techniques:
By Dan Gagnon of www.threeguysfishing.com
Some of toughest fishing is during the dog days of summer, mid July to late August, when the temperatures hit a humid, hazy 30+ degrees and the water is calm. If you can, head out early (pre-dawn) and come back in before noon, garner some brownie points around with house and head out again after supper. But if you can only manage a few hours in the heat, bring a hat and some sunscreen and a lot of fluids, and head out for a deep rocky smallmouth bass lake.
One might think smallies in the intense summer heat are tough to catch, not necessarily, there's just a little deeper, but still hungry. Forget the shallow structure like fallen trees and weed lines, even in the shade the water there will likely be too warm for larger smallmouth.
Instead, focus on deeper water, a minimum 10 feet and as much as 30, and work a subtle presentation of a live minnow on a straight or bait holder snell hook. No leader, no swivel, no jig and if you need it, maybe just a small split-shot, a few feet away from the hook to help get the live minnow down deep.
Work off of points or cliffs or any deeper structure like differences in bottom (like gravel to sand, boulders to gravel etc). Leave a lot of slack in the line, letting the bait slowly work its way down, right in front of suspending bass. That subtle presentation of a minnow struggling with a hook though it’s lip will generate hits.
I’ve tried this technique in tough summer fishing on deep rocky lake trout and smallmouth lakes in Northern Ontario and it never fails.
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