By Bob Jensen
Fishing the Midwest Fishing Team
(photo by Bob Jensen) Tim Emanuel took this summer walleye when the sky was cloudless and air temperatures were much cooler than usual.
Depending on where you live, we’re in the middle to end of summer. Fishing can be good, or it can be tough. If it’s tough, there are some things we can do to catch more fish right now. Following are some of those things.
Many of us have a tendency to fish memories. A few weeks ago we were catching walleyes on jigs in shallow water, or we were catching crappies near logs along shorelines, or we were catching largemouth bass in the rushes. Today, if we’re fishing those fish in those same places using the same techniques, our success maybe won’t be so good.
It’s not because the fish aren’t biting, it’s because they’re not where they were earlier in the year. We need to adapt: We need to look for the walleyes, crappies, bass, and any other species of fish in different places. We also probably need to use different techniques.
Weather can be a factor. A couple of years ago we were on a mid/late summer largemouth bass trip in central Minnesota. A severe weather front had gone through. Air temperatures dropped 20 degrees overnight, the skies were clear, and the bass didn’t want to eat.
However, northern pike were very willing to attack our spinnerbaits. They weren’t big pike, but they were fun to catch. When weather conditions change, we need to change. We need to switch species or switch techniques, or maybe even switch to a different body of water. Oftentimes, river fish won’t be as affected by weather conditions as lake fish.
When fishing conditions are good, meaning the weather has been stable for a few days, a faster presentation will often be productive. A faster presentation enables an angler to cover water quickly, so you can show your bait to more fish. When the water is warmer, fish are often hungry, so the more fish you show your bait to, the more bites you’ll get. Sometimes!
There are lots of baitfish in the water in the summer and early fall that are the right size for predator fish to eat. There are other forms of food also, so the predators have lots of choices on the menu. Some anglers subscribe to the “match-the-hatch” theory that we should use baits that resemble the food choices that are abundant.
However, there are a good number of anglers who like to show the fish something completely different. It’s kind of like people: If we’ve been on a diet of cheeseburgers, eventually a slice of pizza is going to look pretty darn appealing. A walleye that’s been eating perch for the past few weeks might prefer a nightcrawler or leech.
Some species of fish stay in deeper water in the summer. Many anglers that are fishing deep water won’t put a bait in the water until they see fish on their sonar. Many of today’s sonar units draw an amazing picture of what’s below the surface of the water. They show baitfish, big fish, vegetation, whatever is down there will be revealed.
We don’t always catch them on the first trip to the location, but we know they’re there, so we keep coming back during the day to see if we can make them bite. Eventually they’ll will.
The summer and autumn months are a great time to be fishing. If you keep these ideas in mind, you’ll have an even better time because you’ll catch more fish.
