Bounce Back from Summertime Blues
Benny Hull’s advice for for coaxing bites from lethargic bass on main lake structure

A lot of anglers sing the summertime blues every year. The hotter it gets, the harder it is for them to coax fish into biting.

It’s been so hot down home that all my ol’ redbone hound wants to do is crawl up under the front porch and lie in the cool dirt. I know how he feels. By mid-morning, the intense August sun beating down on my neck and shoulders has me looking for shade, too.

The dog days of summer puts game fish in a slow-down and cool-off mood as well. And when that happens, it’s a good idea to crawl right in there and join them. By that, I mean first locate fish where they’re hunkering down, put slow-moving lures right in front of them, and keep them there for as long as it takes to trigger a bite.

Game fish in warm weather become opportunistic feeders. They’re not so apt to chase down a meal as they might in the spring or fall, but if you put a tasty-looking bait right in their face, they won’t pass up an easy meal no matter how hot it gets.

You need lures that will reach fish lieing back in the shade of heavy cover, like the hydrilla mats on Guntersville, or down on the deep, cool ledges and humps of lakes and reservoirs across the country. I use soft plastics a lot in this season, both drop shot and Carolina-rigged, or I’ll tie on big jigs or slow-rolling spinnerbaits. Consistently, soft plastic worms, craws, creature baits, and minnow imitators produce for me throughout the summer. The challenge is keeping the lure moving in the fish’s strike zone long enough to goad it into action.

Over the past few weeks, I fished humps near the main channel on three different river-system reservoirs. Each time, I was with a different partner, and like I’ve done for years, they all started out fishing Carolina rigs. Lately I’ve switched over to a Recoil Rig for about 90% of my soft plastic fishing. I started using this technique back during the spawn, where it’s the most effective way to hook bedding bass that I’ve ever seen. It’s pretty much spoiled me for bottom bouncing Carolina rigs, too; using it I’ll out-fish a Carolina Rig two to one. That’s the way it went on those trips, too. It wasn’t long before my partners each rigged the same way, and then they matched me fish for fish.

If you’ve not run across the Recoil Rig, it looks pretty much like a drop shot rig, but there’s a little bungee cord between the end of your fishing line and weight. Not only does that create a lot more life-like action in lures when drop shotting, but you’re able to cast out and retrieve your lure just above the bottom with more action than any Carolina rig ever could. And when you reach a shelf or ledge, you can pause your retrieve and work the lure in place.

That’s what we were doing the other day – positioning our boat over the humps, casting out into deeper water, and bouncing our lures back up the sides. Largemouth bass were stacking up and suspending against the vertical drops, and when our Recoil Rigged worms paused and then danced and twitched right in among them, it proved too much for them. Even inactive fish finally get ticked off and slam a worm that jiggles, vibrates, and twirls right in front of it, even if they’re not hungry.

This technique is equally effective on smallmouth and walleye. For smallies, try a craw imitation, but fish it the same way — walking it from deep to shallow, pausing to work it in place against the face of every shelf you pass, where the fish are scouring the rock face for crawfish hiding in the cracks.

A fishing buddy of mine, Joe Haubenreich, president of Secret Weapon Lures, just returned from a week of walleye fishing on Wabakimi Lake in Ontario, one of the Pipestone Fly-in outposts. He discovered that 2-1/2-inch soft plastic shad imitators out-fished even live minnows four to one when presented on a Recoil Rig. Before the week was out, his entire party was using them on deep reefs, inflows, and funnels at the mouths of rocky bays. Not only did the Rig produce bigger catches, but a single soft plastic minnow usually lasted for a couple dozen walleye. Considering the expense and trouble of using live minnow, that represented a huge savings.

The only difference between my southern style bass fishing and Joe’s walleye rig was that where I usually have about twelve to eighteen inches between my hook and the bungee cord at the end of my line, for walleye he kept only three or four inches of line below the hook. With the stretch of the Recoil Rig, that put his dancing lure no more than a foot above the bottom, right in the strike zone for as long as he desired.

I urge everyone to take a look at this rig to beat the heat this summer. You’ll find it on the Web and in a few stores at this time. Be careful: it will spoil you for other techniques. But if you want to park your lure in front of a fish, make it swim and writhe like it’s alive, and work it as long as it takes to draw a strike, it will help you bounce back from the summertime blues.

Benny Hull
“The Ol’ Stump Bumper”
www.bennyhull.com