For a guy who likes to fish off the bank, July is the month that separates the men from the boys. Usually, most of the fish in our North Carolina lakes have moved out into deeper water; there aren’t even many little buck bass left on the bank.
Bass are a lot more scattered, and you can’t expect to sit in one spot and catch your limit. You’ve got to move around a lot and fish more places — and fish them more times in a day.
Compared to July, June was an easy, easy month to catch bass. July can be difficult, except maybe at some of our lakes close to the Virginia border, like Buggs Island and Gaston. Those lakes fish more like the rest of our lakes fish in June; the fish spawn a little later, and they’re a little behind as far as moving out into deep water.
In July, you’re fishing for one or two fish from a spot, or maybe you’re fishing to catch the one fish that triggers the rest of them into feeding. But more often than not, they’re not feeding as often, so if there are three bass on a certain place, you may have to go back three or four times until you catch them feeding.
Cover will start to play a little bigger role in July than it did in June, when they were on sharp drops on the way out. Some of your brushpiles will start to hold fish, although they’ll get better toward August. But it’s pretty hard to beat single stumps on a hard bottom; that’s one of the better patterns in July. They can move up and feed around a single stump or maybe two or three stumps together that are isolated from everything else.
You do find the areas where most of the fish are living will be cut down some. You don’t have to worry about the backs of creeks; most of the fish will be out on the main lake, around the mouth of creeks, or maybe a quarter of the way back in a creek. They really love to get out on the main lake, because during the summer, they want to get in places where there’s some current — as much current as they can get.
This summer might be a whole lot different when it comes to current, and that may move bass around. We had so much rain this spring, there will probably be a lot more current in the creeks than normal, and the bass may not have to move all the way out to the main lake to find current. The main lake consistently has current, because water moving through dams, making electricity, creates current.
How clear the water is may directly affect how deep bass will get. On stained lakes like High Rock, the fish hardly ever get any deeper than 15 feet. On clear lakes like Wylie and Norman, they may be 25 feet deep. At Buggs Island, they might get as deep as 20. The clearer the lake, the deeper the pattern will be.
As a general rule, I like to have my boat in 20 or 30 feet of water. If I run over a piece of cover and see it on my electronics, I can usually find a couple of points of reference on the bank to line up on. Otherwise, you can throw out a marker buoy. It’s good to have one right next to you; if you run over something, you can throw it out right away and be able to turn around and go right back over it.
I’m going to stick with a DT-20, a DT-16 or a DT-14 in some kind of a shad pattern: blue pearl, green pearl. If you get in a situation where the fish aren’t quite as deep, maybe cause the water is stained, then you can fish a chartreuse bait, but those are usually better later on in the summer.
I will have a big Texas-rig tied on, usually a Zoom Big Dead Ringer worm. That can be a pretty good tool when you’re fishing deep cover, and it will catch you a big fish. A jig doesn’t seem to be as strong a bait in July as plastic.
If you have to fish shallow, you’re going to have to go up the river. That’s about the only place you’ll find any fish on the bank. Fishing up in the river in July may be better than in the lake, because there’s more current and oxygen, and fish will be a little bit more active. You can take a DT-10 or even a DT-6 and get ’em. But if you’re a shallow-water guy, you may have an awful lot of competition for that little bit of water.
David Fritts is a 52-year-old bass pro from Lexington. He was the 1993 Bassmasters Classic champion, the 1994 BASS Angler of the Year, and winner of the 1997 FLW Tour Championship. He is sponsored by Tums, Ranger boats, Evinrude outboards, Rapala, VMC hooks, Zoom, American RodSmiths and Bass Pro Shops.
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