I know this is going to sound like it doesn’t make sense, but August can be a really tough month to fish for bass across North Carolina — and I like it. August is the deep-water month in North Carolina. Even though some fish always will be in shallow water in rivers that feed big lakes and a few fish will be at the backs of creeks, this month demands, for the most part, structure fishing.
The quality fish will be out there 12- to 25-feet deep. You can catch a few deeper, but I’ve never caught many quality fish any deeper than that.
August is a tough month, one of the toughest of the year. Fish are hard to find, and they can be sluggish. All of the schooling is finished. Bass groups, males and females, have been broken up for a long time. Now, you’re looking to catch one or two of them here and one or two of them there.
It’s a month when you’re going to be looking at a lot of lures you can get down deep, crankbaits such as Rapala DT-14s and DT-16s and big plastic worms like Zoom’s Mag 2 and Ol’ Monsters. Those are my baits of choice.
I like to fish the big worms with a big weight. I’ve fished lead weights as heavy as 5/8 to 3/4 ounce with Texas rigs You can fish a worm a little bit faster when you have a bigger weight, and a Carolina rig is also good.
In August there are three main places where you can catch fish.
There are always some resident fish in the backs of creeks, and there are fish up in the river, but for the most part, bass are gonna be scattered from pretty close to the mouth of a creek to the main lake.
A lot of times, in August, they’ll get on smaller drops, contour breaks. A 3-foot drop that wouldn’t hold fish in June will hold fish in August.
You can fish way out on the end of long points — way, way off the bank where I want ’em. And you need to be using a long, long cranking rod, because you need to make extremely long casts to get your baits down as deep as they’ll run. My American Rodsmith cranking rod is 7 feet, 11 inches.
If you’re fishing a deep-diving crankbait, August is a good time to start using chartreuse. You’re fishing in fairly deep water, and sometimes, a bait that’s a little brighter will work pretty good.
I really like three colors: green tiger — which doesn’t have any red on its belly — chartreuse/brown and chartreuse/green. Sometimes, your shad colors can be productive in August, but chartreuse baits have always done a little better. Even chartreuse/blue, you can catch fish on it, even though it’s always been a little better in September.
If I were getting ready to fish in August, I’d go to Bass Pro Shops or get a catalog and order DT-14s and DT-16s in chartreuse/brown, chartreuse/green and green tiger. There are a lot of times when a bass, for some reason, want lures that doesn’t have any red on their bellies.
One thing a fisherman must have in August is not necessarily the right lures. It’s patience, and it can be as important as anything you carry in your tackle box this month.
It takes a lot of patience to stay at it and catch fish when you might go a long time between bites. Fish can be really hard to find. You can be close to ‘em, less than a cast away, but since they’re not chasing, you might not ever know they’re there. And there are times when you can be right on top of ’em and not be able to get ’em to bite. They’re really more on and off in the way they feed at this time of year than any other time.
One thing I wind up doing a lot in August is going back to spots. If I’ve found a nice drop or a brush pile where I think there should be fish, I may come back to that spot and fish it two or three times the same day.
Another thing I’ll do in August when bass are in deeper water, is fish a big Spot to try and get a big bite. You don’t get many biteswith a Spot all year, but it will produce a big bite. I usually won’t pull out a big Spot until I’ve already got a limit and I’m trying to catch one big fish.
I fish a Spot with a flipping stick. I make long casts, let the bait settle to the bottom, then rip it up off the bottom with my rod tip. I try to reel in the slack and follow the bait back down. That’s important because most of your bites are going to be when the bait is falling back to the bottom.
Sometimes, after the bait falls, you start to pick it back up, and he’s there.
Editor’s note: David Fritts is a 49-year-old professional bass fisherman from Lexington. He was the 1993 BASS Masters Classic champion, the 1993-94 BASS Angler of the Year and the 1997 FLW Tour Champion. His sponsors include: Bass Pro Shops, Evinrude Motors, Ranger Boats, Chevy Trucks, Minn-Kota trolling motors, American Rodsmith, Rapala crankbaits and fishing line, Zoom plastics, Solar Bat sun glasses, Mountain Dew, Gripper (ECS Anchor Supply), VMC hooks, Pro Pocket and Blue Fox.
Be the first to comment