(Editor's note: "Catching Bass with Dustin Wilks" airs four times per week on Sportsman Channel – 6:30 a.m. ET Monday, 11:30 a.m. Tuesday, 5 a.m. Saturday and 4:30 p.m. Sunday – with the new season launching this week. The six-time Bassmaster Classic qualifier provides BassFans with additional insight about each episode in these submissions.)
Episode 1: Shallow in Summer
If you had a chance to watch this show, you may have been surprised to see bass get caught very shallow in water temperatures around 90 degrees.
Fishing in a crowd is not my thing, so I seek out areas with little or no pressure, and in the summer, that is normally found shallow as most of the fish on any given body of water go out deeper. The key word here is “most", leaving me with a few and mostly by myself.
This episode reminded me of a summer tournament – there was one boat that day that was fishing shallow and everyone else I saw was out on deeper ledges.
My strategy during this show was to fish unpressured fish on very shallow ledges and where cooler water entered the lake through creeks. I even went up a couple of the small creeks a ways and found the water was actually much cooler. You can imagine this colder water sinks and still flows out of the creeks and cools the surrounding water – maybe not at the surface, but the water in the shallow ditches nearer the bottom as they flow into the lake.
This can be duplicated all over the country on any lake as long as it is not a really old lake with all the shallow channels silted in.
My goal was to get reaction strikes similar to deep cranking, only with a shallow-diving Yo-Zuri square-bill. This bait has flat sides, but is still heavy and casts well. The bait is painted on the inside, so combined with the flat side, it puts off a nice, natural flash that bass love in shallow water. I combined this with a heavier than normal rod (6'10" Falcon Expert Head Turner for crankbaits) because there was a lot of stumps. I usually use this rod for spinnerbaits, but it is nice to pull fish away from stumps quickly.
In areas where there were too many weeds to crank, I used a bait that has been my secret weapon for a number of years – an Eco Pro swinging swim jig with a Culprit swimbait trailer. If you watched the show, you will see how this skirted jig breaks up the image of the swimbait, but still allows for the tail and lure to work naturally in the water. This bait is a key shallow-water offering for me when there is a lot of cover and I want to be stealthy, but still appeal to bigger fish.
I ended up doing really well with lots of quality fish. Next time you get out there, try fishing off the beaten path. Not just in summer, this applies to all times of year.
Right now we all want to fish shallow, but there are still some big pre-spawn fish out deep. Even in the dead of winter, I’ve literally seen bass cruising under ice in very shallow water. While it might not be textbook, it will get you unpressured bass that are easier to catch.
So if everything is getting hammered, look in another direction that will keep you Catching Bass!
