Shallow-Water Hangouts for Summertime Bass

The late Bassmaster tour pro David Wharton believed that, even during the hottest part of summer, you still could find and catch bass in shallow water. The secret to success is knowing where to look.

Years of tournament competition on reservoirs throughout the United States showed Wharton that summer bass utilize a number of warm-weather habitats, depending on what's available to them. Not all bass in a lake move shallow when the temperature soars, of course, but certainly enough of them do to make exploring places like the backs of creeks worthwhile.

Here are several shallow-water options Wharton thought anglers should consider when looking for largemouth in summer.

Vegetation. "If a lake has shallow vegetation in summer, you don't need to look anywhere else," said Wharton. "It can be something as simple as scattered pondweed, lily pads, or small patches of shoreline wiregrass. Regardless of the species of vegetation, it will attract and hold bass.

"A number of lures can be used to fish shallow vegetation," continued the Texas pro, "ranging from early morning topwaters to plastic worms."

When fishing vegetation, his choice along the deeper outside edge of a grassline was a small popper. If the vegetation was matted on the surface, like hydrilla and milfoil will do, he would try a plastic frog or rat over the top. He also would use shallow-running crankbaits, spinnerbaits and even buzzbaits.

"It's important to remember where you catch bass doing this," added Wharton, "because you probably can return to the same spot later and catch more fish with a worm. Something in that spot attracted bass, and it will continue to replenish itself."

Backs of Creeks. Wharton also noted that in lakes without vegetation, as well as in river systems in which current is largely controlled by releases through dams, summer bass frequently move to the backs of creeks. "The most important requirement," he said, "is current, with cover a close second.

"When I talk about going to the back of a creek, I mean going back so far you can usually make one cast completely across from bank to bank, and the water will seldom be more than 4 feet deep. When you travel this far back in a creek on most lakes, you're probably in water that doesn't get fished very often.

"Is it reliable? Absolutely, and it works everywhere. Anglers have qualified for the Bassmaster Classic just by fishing this pattern on different lakes around the country.

"The current is critical because it keeps the water oxygenated and a few degrees cooler, especially if the creek is spring-fed. Creeks without this current tend to become stagnated by late summer and do not usually offer good fishing.

"Cover also is very important in this pattern, and the best types tend to be stumps, trees and laydowns. If bass can use the channel itself as cover, then stumps and trees may not be required," said Wharton, "but the very back of a creek always will be more productive if other cover is available.

"What I like to do in situations like this is slow roll a spinnerbait along the bottom and bounce it off stumps and laydowns," he explained. "Sometimes, I'm making long casts into water just 15 inches deep because I don't want to risk spooking fish with the boat. Then I just slowly start winding the lure back.

"Another lure I often use is a small, square-billed crankbait that can be fished slowly along the bottom and come through cover surprisingly well. Plastic worms and craw worms can be productive, but this is really one place where spinnerbaits are easily the top choice for most anglers."

Mouths of Small Creeks. On river systems and occasionally on lakes where power generation produces a noticeable current, the mouths of small tributaries may provide another shallow-water option, although it isn't as reliable as the backs of them. Specifically, this pattern works best on the downstream point and when current is present.

"Basically, the current usually forms a small eddy around the downstream point where bass may gather to feed," Wharton explained. ''The actual size of the productive zone may be quite small, so accurate casting is important. I've seen this pattern work often enough to remember it when I'm fishing river systems.

"This is a time to fish small plastic worms or jigs, pitching them slightly upcurrent from the point and letting the water wash them down across the point and into the eddy. It's not a pattern that tends to produce a lot of fish from a single spot, but if you're heading upstream or downstream and see such a point, it's always worth trying."

Boat Docks and Piers. "On docks with pilings," said Wharton, "the pilings themselves normally hold the fish, and most often, bass will be on the shady side near the bottom. On floating piers, bass frequently suspend underneath the dock itself, and shade becomes the key ingredient. I normally think the docks with pilings are more reliable and tend to hold bass longer, too."

Wharton's preferred lure for pilings was either a Texas-rigged worm or a tube lure. Either can be pitched or skipped underneath the structure, then hopped along the bottom around each piling. For floating docks, Wharton preferred a 1/2-ounce spinnerbait that he ran just out of sight underneath the floats. If the spinnerbait didn't produce, he usually would switch to a light swimming jig and work it the same way beneath the dock.

He considered docks in shallow water the easiest to fish because you can fish them faster. For that reason, he generally started with those and gradually worked his way deeper. He also usually started with the larger tributaries, simply because they usually would hold more fish, as well as more docks.

Standing Timber. On many of the deeper clear-water lakes of the West and Midwest, where oxygen often is depleted in late summer, bass frequently suspend in or over standing timber. Even though the trees may be in water 50 or more feet deep and not even visible, the fish themselves may be less than 10 feet below the surface.

"I have only seen this on lakes like Table Rock, Bull Shoals, Mead, Powell, and a few others," explained Wharton, 'but I know it happens on other deep-water lakes with little shoreline cover. The bass simply move vertically, rather than horizontally.

"This is a great time and place to throw a big topwater lure like a Zara Spook or a jointed Redfin, and just slowly wobble it across the surface. Your boat may be in 100 feet of water out in the middle of a cove, but the bass aren't deep at all, and they'll absolutely smash a topwater lure like this.

"It's a pattern that most believe originated on Bull Shoals, where anglers were fishing for striped bass," said Wharton, "but it works for largemouth, too."

Bridges. The bass fishing world certainly remembers how Aaron Martens finished second in the 2004 Bassmaster Classic by fishing a single bridge for three straight days, and Wharton acknowledged the pattern is often overlooked in today's fast-moving bass world.

Wharton believed that rather than studying the piling structures themselves, anglers should study the bottom very carefully for some type of change. This may or may not be the actual river channel itself, but instead a pile of rocks on the downstream side, or perhaps a washed-out hole along an abutment. Many larger bridges also will have logs, brush and other debris piled against one or more abutments on their upstream sides. These will help attract and hold bass at a bridge, too.

"It's important to remember that an entire bridge--every piling or abutment--will seldom be productive," he emphasized. "Years ago, I used to fish a spot under the Hwy. 147 bridge that crosses Rayburn. I caught a lot of bass there, but not around any of the pilings, which never produced for me. Instead, I found a hump right in front of one piling, where the bottom rose from 20 feet to 12, and it had some of the piling's brush around it. Those are the kinds of features that truly make a bridge a good place to look for summer bass."

Wharton's two favorite lures for bridges were shallow crankbaits or plastic worms, but spinnerbaits and even buzzbaits fished right beside the abutments also could produce amazing results. "For the most part," he said, "bass are suspended and thus will readily come up for a surface bait."

Riprap. The riprap around bridges, dams and other places on a lake also offer excellent warm-weather fishing opportunities. The rocks themselves often have algae growing on them that attracts minnows, crawfish and smaller fish that feed there and may use the cracks and holes between the rocks for shelter. Bass, of course, prowl the riprap looking for these morsels.

"Riprap may look intimidating at first," said Wharton, especially if it stretches half a mile or more across the water, so I look for several features that often eliminate a lot of unproductive areas," he explained. "First, I like larger rocks, rather than smaller ones, and if there's a small area of larger rocks, surrounded by smaller ones, so much the better. Don't ask me why, but it just seems bass prefer the larger rocks.

"Next, I look for corners in the riprap, places where the wall of rocks creates a bend or even where it ends. Not only do these places offer something different, but they are also transition zones where the bottom conditions may change. The ends of a riprap wall, especially, may mark a shallow place that soon drops to deeper water."

Slow rolling a spinnerbait parallel to the rocks and bumping them with the lure was Wharton's favorite technique here, but he also used one of his favorite square-billed crankbaits, covering water down to about 4 feet. He also was found using swimbaits at times.

"Overall, the most important thing to remember when both the air and water temperatures are scalding hot," concluded Wharton, "is that bass will be in shallow water where the conditions fit their needs, and you can catch them there."