Hot-weather bass fishing not impossible

Bass fishing is a challenge during hot weather. Most fishermen fish from dusk till dawn. They believe that bass move into the shallows to feed when the sun is gone and overnight temperatures are cooler.
While this is true, night fishing is not the only answer for hot-water anglers.
Bass feed throughout the day. They don’t just take a nap all day then feed at night. The key is discovering how to catch bass on the hottest days.
Bass are feeding opportunists. They feed when food is handy. They are fully active and, in fact, aggressive when conditions are right. A key is discovering thermocline.
Lakes go through seasonal water temperature changes. This creates different levels of water temperatures. The water becomes uncomfortably warm on the surface for bass this time of year and more bright that they can tolerate.
Yet, I should note that some oxygen content is maintained on the surface in spite of direct sunlight, an important factor for bass comfort and, in fact, survival. This explains why bass can be caught on top of the water during evening hours when the water surface is still warm.
Several feet below the surface, temperatures are cooler with a good oxygen content. This thermocline is a comfort zone for bass and other fish. During hot weather there is little oxygen content below the thermocline. So most bass are caught at this essential level and above.
I discovered this years ago with a professional bass fisherman, Bob Pingle, inventor of the Comfort Grip Bass Rod. He invited me down to fish Bull Shoals Lake in August. Temperatures averaged 95 degrees and occasionally climbed higher. I thought we were going to night fish. We started about 1 p.m. that day. His reasoning was to demonstrate how delicate a Comfort Grip Rod’s action could be. The bass were biting light and hard to detect.
We started by graphing out a submerged creek channel about 12 feet from the surface. Buoys were dropped every 15 feet. When finished, we could see an exact outline of how the long creek channel twisted and turned. Then we started fishing salt impregnated tube jigs, slowly across the creek channel.
The bass were suspended in the thermocline at about eight feet deep. Most times they would grab our jigs on the drop. Bites were light taps, sometimes only one tap that was easily detected through the lightweight rods and thin 8-pound monofilament line. Occasionally a bass would swim up and hammer the jig, but that day this was not the normal hit. Most were light taps.
By day’s end we had caught and released 27 largemouth and Kentucky bass. We constantly caught bass until evening. That was my first taste of hot-water bass fishing during the day. I have caught many bass on 95-degree or hotter days since by tubing submerged creek channels.
That is one technique that works. Sadly, bass fishermen who fish these extreme conditions often rely on the same technique each time. Sometimes improvising from existing conditions will make you successful.
Bass will occasionally leave the comfort of cooler water to find bait fish. Some years back Brent Chapman and I found several bass literally waiting in the shadows of trees to ambush whatever swam past. The air temperature was close to 100 degrees requiring an occasional step overboard to cool off.
Some bass were sitting behind thin trees that did not cast much of a shadow. The fact that bass do not like bright sunlight is a well known fact. But most would not think to shadow-fish during hot weather.
Most of our bass hit 10-inch purple plastic worms with a piece of split shot. We cast our lures past the shadows then slowly fished them back. We could almost predict a strike each time the worm touched shadow. Chapman caught a 6-pound largemouth bass using this technique.
Cloud cover during hot weather can offer a clue of bass activity. Vince Gordon of Kansas City regularly takes advantage of clouds while planning for bass tournaments.
“I look for creek channels on cloudy, hot days then fish the flats that move into shore,” Gordon said. “We use tube jigs and crankbaits. I throw a lot of topwater lures when it is raining. The key is establishing a pattern then experimenting with it.”
Gordon regularly places or wins hot weather tournaments by determining bass patterns then trying different lures and presentations. He occasionally carries paints and changes lure colors. The bass let him know what they want.
Hot weather bass fishing is a challenge but not impossible. Or as the man said, “There is only one way to find out.”