August is a calendar page that a lot of bass fishermen in the Carolinas would like to flip right through. There’s a reason the phrase “dog days” is often used when people are talking about the eighth month. While we get a lot of hot weather in June and July, you know August is a month for hot, hot weather.
Sure, a lot of fishermen are taking time off the lake in August to get their deer stands, food plots and dove fields in shape for the arrival of September. In fact, some of those things sound like awfully good ideas to me. But I also know, very well, that August can be a rewarding time to be on the water if you know how and when to spend that time.
One thing to know is that you fish for bass in deeper water from late June until August, and around the middle of the month, fish start to move up – a lot more than most fishermen think. We follow these fish out after the spawn, when they move out to flat points. Then you have baitfish spawns, shad and herring, and then maybe a panfish spawn – then the fish move deep. And by the end of May or June, a lot of fish are offshore. They seem to get deep pretty quickly. Then, in mid-August, maybe as you’re pointing to September, a lot of them move up.
Dissolved oxygen
A lot of this move has to do with the amount of dissolved oxygen in the water. The deeper water might be a little cooler, but it’s tougher to get a significant amount of dissolved oxygen down there, unless you’re fishing a lake that has a lot of current moving and oxygenating the water. I tell people all the time, back when I won the Bassmaster Classic, on the Louisiana Delta in 1999, it was in August, and even though the surface temperature was 91 when we put in and 93 when we took out for the weigh-in, I caught all of my fish in 5 feet of water or less. A lot of them were 3 to 4 feet under the surface, over deeper water. They had moved up to the hotter water because it had more oxygen.
But I like to make things as simple as possible. Bass are going to be around baitfish schools, either up on the bank at the depth the baitfish are holding, or suspended out over deep water, right around the baitfish schools. And our electronics these days are so good, we can see those baitfish and those fish. Back in the day, we had to fish all different depths to find them. Now, if you see baitfish close to the bottom on your electronics, you fish close to the bottom. If they’re suspended off the bottom, you fish around the suspended fish.
I catch a lot of fish 10 to 12 feet deep in August, when I’ve caught them 20 to 25 feet deep in July. I’ll catch them either in 10 to 12 feet of water on the bottom, or suspended over deeper water. One thing to look for: we have brush piles and cane piles, and fishing around them gets going in August. That’s because fish will suspend around the top of those piles, up in the water column. That brushpile may be on the bottom in 20 feet of water, but the top may be up 7 or 8 feet higher, and that’s where those fish are holding.
Start early
I’ll have several baits tied on in August, baits that will get down to the depths I need. I’ll crank different baits depending on where the fish are. You can pick any of the Rapala DT baits; if they’re 10 feet deep, fish a DT-10; if they’re 16 feet deep, fish a DT-16. I will use whatever crankbait I need to get down to where the fish are holding. You can fish a Texas-rigged Senko or a jerkbait if it will get down to them. Or if they’re suspended, you can fish a swimbait like a Swim Senko or a GT360 and count the bait down to the right depth.
One thing about August; by late in the month, fish will want to look up and feed. It’s hard to believe, but sometimes, fish that are 8 feet deep are more likely to react to a topwater bait than a crankbait or a swimbait. They’ll react to something making a commotion at the surface, like a Skitter V, so don’t be afraid to throw a topwater.
In August, a little chartreuse on a bait will help. But I’m still fishing mostly baitfish colors, shad and herrings. If we have a late bluegill spawn, or sometimes, a late mayfly hatch, if you see them, fish them.
Here’s the second big thing to do in August: get on the water early, by 6 a.m. or 6:30 at the latest. We see an awful lot of recreational boat traffic this time of year. But it usually doesn’t start until later in the morning. I feel like, if you get out by 6 a.m, you can get a good 4 hours of fishing. And at dawn, the water is the coolest it’s going to be all day, having cooled down during the 8 or 10 hours after sundown. One last thing you might think about. If you feel like you can do it, get out around 4 a.m. You’ll get a couple of hours of really good, predawn fishing. Look for lights on boat docks and fish those areas. A lot of boat docks have green lights, and you have to fish close to them to see them, but you’ll have some streets that will swing close to the lake, and they’ll have lights, and some boat docks will still have street lights. Those are easy places to start.
Before dawn, I like to fish a lot of soft plastics, like Senkos or Kut Tail worms and Swim Senkos. I’ll fish a shaky head Texas-rigged or on a Spot Remover jighead. And I’ll fish darker colors, because you want that dark silhouette for fish that are looking up at the surface and the lights – so they can see it better.
If I’m able to fish from 4 to 10 or 6 to 10 and catch a nice limit, maybe 2½- to 3-pound fish, I think I’ve had a good morning. Then, I can come in and put on my grandad hat and get on the pontoon and ride everybody around making waves.
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