The 3 Best Places To Look For Summertime Bass

When looking for the best places to find summertime bass on lakes in the heat, three key factors to consider are shade, deep water and flowing water.Here is a look at the three best places to find summertime bass based on those factors.

Boat Docks

On one of those typical steamy hot summer days, I decided to play around with some new lures on my home waters of Lake of the Ozarks. I’ve never been fond of getting up early so I decided to test the lures in the late morning and the heat of the afternoon. The lures failed to produce any bass in the morning, so when the temperature climbed above 90 degrees and the humidity made me feel like I was in a sauna I knew I needed to catch some bass to get my mind off the heat.So I switched to an old reliable plastic worm and headed for a couple of docks I knew held fish. While pitching into the shady wells of a dock, I immediately caught a 3-pound largemouth. This pattern of targeting shady areas of docks on sweltering summer afternoons has produced bass for me throughout the years.

Main Lake Points

These spots hold schools of summertime bass because the structure offers shallow water where the fish can move up in a hurry to feed and then move back to the drop-offs where they descend into cooler, deep water. This type of structure is especially productive on reservoirs when the dam authorities are generating electricity causing current to flow across the points. The water flow attracts baitfish to the structure and triggers bass into a feeding frenzy.Bumping lures along the bottom produces bass when current is flowing over the points. The best lures for bumping the bottom along the points on summer afternoons are Carolina-rigged 10-inch plastic worms or deep-diving crankbaits.

Tributaries

The rivers and streams feeding into a lake offer plenty of water flow and oxygenated water that keep bass active even in the midsummer heat. Run up these creeks or rivers as far as you can to find the strongest flowing water.The most productive spots to try in the tributaries are the pockets near the river bends where wind and current push baitfish towards the bank. Throw 1/8- or 1/4-ounce spinnerbaits and shallow-diving crankbaits to catch bass chasing shad in the pockets.