Slowest time of the open water season? August BASS questions..

[Slyster]

I've noticed that the last 2 weeks or so have been SO slow.. much slower than when bass season opened.

Q1: Is this generally a true thing every year?

Q2: When can we expect the bite to pickup? Do they go nuts to pork up for the winter before the ice comes?

Q3: Plastics don't seem to work too well now.. do you experienced bass masters still use plastic at this time of year? Or use spinners or cranks?

TX! What a great summer. Hate to see it go..

[Frank Rickard]

Slyster,

I have actually found fishing very good the last three weeks. I have been fishing the same lake the last three Saturday's and we have caught a good amount of bass, including a 20.5" and a 21", also catching northerns and a few bonus 10"+ crappies. We have been hitting shallow reeds early in the A.M. with buzzbaits and spinnerbaits, and then moving to lillypad patches using the same two lures and senkos. Fish have been coming off of depths from 3ft.-12 ft. Fish have been very active, but only for short periods of time, last Saturday the bite slowed way down by 9:30.

[Deitz Dittrich]

Sly-I would say your bite has more to do with the weather pattern than the time of the year. HOwever that is just my opinion. I have had some of my best bassin in the last week, yet however, I went to my home lake last night for 3 hours and never got a bite even! Again, I think the weather/cold fronts have done more to shut fish down than anything.

To your questions!

Q1: Is this generally a true thing every year?

A:Not really, and Yes at the same time. The fish will change locations, which can be tough for some people as the weeds die off, they will stop using weeds as cover and use another type cover. So if you are fishing the same weed lines as you were a month ago, your bite will die off yes. About this time every year.

Q2: When can we expect the bite to pickup? Do they go nuts to pork up for the winter before the ice comes?

A:The bite will pick up when the weather stabilizes. Mid september usually is a good start to the fall feed. ANd yes you can catch great numbers of fish and some hogs during the summer bite.

Q3: Plastics don't seem to work too well now.. do you experienced bass masters still use plastic at this time of year? Or use spinners or cranks?

A: I use plastics all year round, the fish in my avitar was caught this last weekend on a Comida. However, I also caught a ton of fish on a spinnerbait, and a few on cranks as well. Most of the better fish were caught on Flipping tubes in heavy weeds.

Good luck sir.. dont give up, there is some of our best fishing ahead!

[TurnUpTheFishing]

Ive seen the fishing pick up a bit with this cooler weather. We actually have started getting nicer fish of docks with jigs. We have still been getting a majority of our fish in deep water on jig/pigs and carolina rigs. Also, we have started throwing cranks a little more but they havnt produced much yet. I think we still have a little while longer until the crank bite really picks up.