A lot of bass fishermen begin to slow down when July approaches, figuring there may be better places to be than on the lake during the hottest months of the summer.
A lot of local and regional tournament trails will fish every month from February through June, then take July and August off, resuming after Labor Day.
I’m here to tell you July isn’t August. It’s actually more like June, and that should be enough to keep you chasing bass for another solid month.
Usually, the fishing is really good the first part of July.
I can remember going to Buggs Island a lot, and the week around July 4 was always the best fishing of the summer. Bass would get moved out real good; it was one of the best weeks of the year for structure fishing.
It hasn’t gotten terribly hot, and you’ve usually got enough current because the power company is moving water, and it’s really a good time to fish. It can be a little difficult right at the end of the month, and August really is difficult, but if you’re putting your rods away for most of July, you’re missing some really good fishing.
A lot of it depends on exactly where you’re at in North Carolina. If you’re at Buggs Island or Gaston, one of the lakes close to the Virginia border, the fish aren’t going to be as far along as they are if you’re fishing Wylie or Norman. A place like High Rock is about halfway between the two sets.
Here’s some key factors to note:
• Most of your fish are going to be 15- to 20-feet deep near steep breaks;
• the majority of fish are going to be at the main lake;
• the best cover is going to be stumps. You can catch an occasional fish at a brush pile, and there might be a few late fish still oriented at rocks, but most of the time, bass are going to be at deep drops or long points with stumps.
At places such as Buggs Island and Gaston, they’re still going to be ganged up pretty good. You can pull up on a good place and catch a limit.
At the other end of the state, for instance at Lake Wylie, they’re going to be about 5- feet deeper, and a little more isolated. You’ll catch one here and one there, but you won’t load the boat without moving. Again, High Rock is pretty much in the middle. You might catch ’em ganged up early in the month, but by the end of the month, they’ll be spread across the lake.
If you idle up to me at a lake this month while I’m fishing, you’ll probably see me with about a half-dozen rods on the deck. Four of them will have crankbaits, and I’ll have a great big worm, such as a Big Dead Ringer with a Texas-rig. I’ll also have a big lizard, an 8-inch lizard, on a Carolina rig.
Rapala is coming out with the latest bait in its series of DT crankbaits, the DT-20, and it should be out by July. Rapala shipped the first ones to me near Memorial Day.
The “20” is a slimmed-down version of the DT-16. The body and lip have been trimmed a little to make it cast better and farther, and it will dive even faster than a 16, so it’ll be a really good bait to crank with this month.
Chartreuse colors will start to get going good in July. They’re really better in August and September, but “homer” (chartreuse/green) and hot-mustard (chartreuse/brown) colors will start to pick up more fish.
You still can catch fish using shad patterns, and I still like blue/pearl and green/pearl during July. I’m going to be throwing basic colors such as green pumpkin when I fish my plastics, and I’m still going to be cranking with 10-pound test Rapala line. I don’t think you need to go any smaller. Even if the water is real clear, they’re not seeing the line when you’re fishing a crankbait.
There are a couple of problems you might run into as you start fishing in the dead of the summer. One is boat traffic. You’ll have to put up with a lot more boats and jet skis. I don’t have an answer for that.
The other problem is keeping your fish alive in the livewell, and there’s a simple answer for that. When I’ve got fish in my livewells, I don’t add ice or anything like that — I just keep the livewell running on manual all day long. I’ll also put a little Rejuvenate in the water, and that seems to work; it really calms them down and relaxes them so they don’t beat themselves up in there. You just simply turn your livewells on manual and don’t turn them off.
If you fish enough during the summer, especially with soft plastics, eventually you’re going to hook a fish deep. I’ve never had one swallow a treble hook on a crankbait; I’ve had hooks in the fish’s gills, and you have to get them out the best you can.
Most of the time, even if a bass really swallows one of my crankbaits, the big barb on the Sure Set hook will catch him back in the roof of the mouth or in the tongue, and you get get those loose.
If you hook a fish in the gullet with a worm or a lizard, there’s not much you can go about it. Don’t try to pull it out — that will just hurt the fish.
Just cut it off and leave it in there. There’s a good chance the fish will be able to get rid of the hook on his own.
David Fritts is a 51-year-old professional bass fisherman from Lexington. He won the 1993 Bassmaster Classic and the 1997 FLW Tour Championship and was the 1994 Bass Angler of the Year. His sponsors are Ranger boats, Evinrude outboards, Rapala, Zoom, VMC hooks, American RodSmiths, Bass Pro Shops and Chevy trucks.
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