At home on Kentucky Lake or just about anywhere during the summer months, you won't find Dan Morehead near to the shoreline. For him, summertime is structure time. It's a style of fishing that baffles many anglers, but Morehead considers it one of his strengths.
"A lot of people have trouble seeing (how and when bass use offshore structure) at first," he said, "but I enjoy it. I really do. It's like a big mind game, and I love the mental challenge of it."
In addition to growing up fishing a structure lake like Kentucky Lake, he says deer hunting has helped him really understand how to find bass when they vacate the shallows. "I'm a diehard deer hunter, and it's amazing how similar bass and deer are in the way they use ridges, creek channels, humps and other structure. They're almost identical. The only difference is current vs. wind."
Hunting For Holes
Since each body of water has its own unique structural makeup, it's difficult to make generalizations about which types of structure hold fish in summer. Simply put, unless there's suitable depth, cover and food near the shoreline, chances are that once the spawn is completely over, most bass will spend most of their time relating to something offshore. Some places that may be only 10 feet deep. On others it's 25 or even 50.
On Kentucky Lake, a textbook structure lake, Morehead said: "When they're done spawning, they start following the creek channels out of bays and gradually migrate out to the main river. Right now we're far enough away from the spawn that most fish are river channel-oriented. They start relating to bars, points and areas where the creek channel dumps into the main river. Underwater humps are good, too, and I also look for river washes, where a high bank might have washed out over the years. Really, it could be anything that creates an obstruction in the current flow (when and where current is a factor)."
In early summer, bass are still in the recovery process following the spawn and tend to "gang up in schools on points and bars. But as summer progresses, they go to chasing baitfish. They'll be more scattered, moving up and down those bars hunting and pecking at shad. I think they look for more individual pieces of cover on the structure rather than the more obvious stuff. They're not necessarily cover-related now, but when they get healthy again, you'll have to find cover to catch one."
3 Primary Patterns
You can use various techniques to probe deep structure – jigging spoons, blade baits, dropshot rigs and other vertical presentations. But Morehead relies on three primary patterns for his summer structure fishing: deep cranking , (Texas-rig) worming and jigging. He makes his decisions based on water clarity – and in turn, depth – and the mood of the fish.
Clear water will often position the fish deeper than a crankbait's effective range, in which case he opts for a jig or worm, he said. But assuming he's found fish in 20 feet or less, he'll still crank. "If they're pulling current or you see shad flying around, I'll always start with a crankbait. Really, though, it's tough to keep even the deepest-diving crankbait in the strike zone for very long at anything below 18 feet. Then you're better off with a jig or worm, especially later in the summer when they'll get buried in the brush more often."
He added: "I don't claim to be another David Fritts. They've got to be biting for me to catch them on a crank. I have to cover as much water as I can, and find active fish. Whenever I find fish that aren't active, I'll go with the jig or worm."
So on that note, how does he choose between a jig and a worm? "I just make that decision on the water. I would venture to say that when one's working they're both working. Generally you're going to get a better (bigger) bite on a jig, though that's not to say that you can't catch big ones on a worm. Mainly, I go to the worm when it's a really tough bite, when you know that just getting a limit will put you in good shape."
Deep Flipping?
Morehead has an interesting and deadly manner of working the jig over deep structure, one that other Kentucky Lake locals are familiar with. "Some guys call it 'hopping' or 'stroking,' but I usually refer to it as slack-lining," he said. "It's been a local technique around here forever, and for a long time it was taboo to even talk about. We would call it the Ancient Chinese Secret."
He makes a long cast slightly beyond the structure, then he lets the jig freefall to the bottom. Once it lands, and with yards of slack line lying on the surface, he then raises the rod tip sharply to 12 o'clock or more, throws the rod back toward the bait, reels in a few cranks, and repeats the process.
"Basically, it's the same principle as flipping," he said. "Just like when you flip to a target, let (the jig) fall, and then hop it in place on a slack line. But rather than just one hop (as it is when flipped shallow), you're hopping it 20 times or so each cast." And it's all happening a lot deeper – in, say, 25 feet rather than 2 to 5.
He added: "You're not fishing it under the boat, but it is kind of a vertical technique. It can be really tough to pick up strikes at first, and you'll lose a ton of jigs. But when you throw that rod tip back toward the bait (following the sharp upward pull) and make a couple turns, you get into a cadence or rhythm and you know how long it takes to get to bottom (after each pull). When something breaks that rhythm, you just jerk that hook because something's got it."
He said he'll work the worm in the same fashion a lot of times. But if he's not slack-lining it, he slowly crawls it along the bottom.
Equipment Notes
> For deep cranking, Morehead uses Mann's 20+ and 30+ crankbaits on 10-pound P-Line mono. He said: "We've got a new version of the 30+ that has shaved lips. It still has the same action and dives as deep, but it's not as hard to pull. Still, to get a crank down past 20 feet, you've really got to want it, man."
> His primary structure worm is an 11-inch straight-tail Mann's Jelly Worm, with either a 3/8- or 1/2-ounce tungsten bullet weight (unpainted) and a 5/0 wide gap Gamakatsu worm hook tied to 10- or 12-pound P-Line.
> His jigs are 1/2- or 2/4-ounce Mann's Stone Jigs, fished on the same 10- to 12-pound P-Line as his worm rigs, and tipped with Uncle Josh pork. He said: "A lot of guys use plastic chunks, but for me it's a confidence deal. The guy that taught me (slack-lining) always used pork, so I've always stuck with it." He said a reel with a 6:1 or better gear ratio is "a necessity" for the technique, as is a "broom handle-action" rod.
Notable
> Re: bass moving deeper in summer, he noted: "A lot of times, the theory about fish moving out doesn't hold true. On some lakes, they'll hold in the coves all summer long so long as they've got depth and food."
