From south Florida to New York, the temps are rising and the bass are biting. The bite is all over the place right now, though, with smallmouth still spawning in the Great Lakes and lunkers down in south Texas having wrapped up their spawning process months ago.
To paint the country with a fairly wide but effective brush, I’m going to give my take on the Southeast, showcasing some of the baits that I know are working here for myself and other anglers. Then Joe will chime in near the end for what’s working in the Northeast. Sandwiched in the middle will have a couple other anglers from around the country offer up their insight as well. This is what we’re throwing in June.
South
It is officially hot here in Alabama, where I am from. The temps aren’t quite where they’ll be in August, but daily highs in the 80s and 90s have arrived and are here to stay. It’s around this time of year that the fish begin to really key in on certain things, and most of these things relate to comfort and food. Cold-blooded bass like to find the most suitable conditions, so they look for cold water and plentiful food. For example, a lot of bass move deep in June, in part because that’s where the majority of the bait is but also because those waters are cooler.
The same can be said for shade; a bass is better able to regulate its body temp by hunkering down in the shade of a dock or bush than by sitting out in the blaring sun. Bream and other baitfish do the same as well. Lastly, you have current. Current stirs up the water, mixing the deeper cold water with the hot water along the surface. This happens anywhere there is current, like in a creek, but the really extreme version of this happens under a dam, where water is pumped from the bottom of one lake into the top of another.
You can often find water in the 60- to 70-degree range in the summer directly beneath dams, while it’s 80 and 90 degrees further down river. These factors (shade, depth, and current) all greatly impact bait selection. So here are some options for all situations.
Wacky Rig
A wacky rig is perhaps the best bait available for fishing in shade, because it skips really well. Take something like a Rapala CrushCity Pigstick and rig it up on a wacky hook and a spinning rod and you have the perfect combination for skipping back under bushes, docks, pontoons, and the like.
Don’t neglect the ultra-shallow water with a wacky rig, either. Sometimes, the only shade in an area is just a few inches deep; the bass aren’t scared to go that shallow to get out of the sun, so you shouldn’t be either.
Frog
A frog is another fantastic bait for shallow fishing in June, for several reasons. For starters, there are lots of bream spawning and insects like mayflies hatching out. In these situations, to a bass, a frog looks like a struggling or feeding bream, and it gets bit well.
But there’s also the skipability of a frog, which again means you can get it back deep into shady areas. Lastly, a frog works great around vegetation. Water willow, hydrilla, and lily pads actually cast quite a bit of shade under the water, though it’s easy for us to forget about that shade from our perspective.
Deep Crankbait
Deep diving crankbaits like the Strike King KVD 5XD, 6XD, 8XD and 10XD perform well in June anywhere from 10 feet deep out to 25. Fishing these baits around structure like ledges or cover like brush allows you to get a bait down deep and process lots of water quickly. Current helps this bite, but it’s not always necessary for this bite. It’s more about finding the cover or structure that the fish are relating to and then figuring out how to make the bait bang off the bottom or the cover to get fish to react.
Magnum Worm
The Texas-rigged Zoom Ol’ Monster and other magnum ribbon tail worms like it have long been summer staples in the tackle box of experienced anglers. Bass can get pretty moody in the summer. These fish are again cold blooded and thrive in water around 72 degrees.
When it gets hotter than that, they won’t feed as much and it can be harder to get them to bite. The subtle, slow-lumbering ribbon tail worm still does the trick when other baits can’t. And this large and easy meal works well from just a couple feet of water out to 25 feet or more, making it one of the more versatile presentations for the summer.
KREJ
The Berkley KREJ is a bait that I’ve really fallen in love with for fishing under dams. Last summer I probably caught a hundred fish on one of these baits on a few fishing trips below one of our dams. That dam releases water everyday in the summer to generate power.
The subsequent current stirs up the bait and sends the fish into a feeding frenzy, schooling all along the surface. Though the KREJ was designed with forward facing sonar in mind (to be casted out and allowed to sink), I’ve found that it’s a phenomenal bait for reeling right along the surface around schooling fish. They absolutely annihilate it.
Swimbait on a Jighead
Whether you’re fishing under a dam in the current or out on a main lake ledge, you can catch a lot of fish on a swimbait rigged up on a jighead. Baits like the Basstrix Paddle Tail Swimbait slid up on a 3/4-ounce jighead are great for ledge fishing, and then 3-inch Keitechs and other small swimbaits (like this BassMooch Smash Paddle) catch them good under dams rigged up on 1/4-ounce jigheads.
In any case, you’re typically going to want to get your bait down close to the bottom so it can tick the cover and structure, but be sure it doesn’t drag bottom so it won’t hang.
Texas – Tyler Anderson
“If I have to pick something, I would say a walking bait and a frog are kind of my topwater one-two. We have some lakes with schooling fish. If I’m on a lake with schooling activity, I usually use a junior size walking bait—because it is a better match to the presentation of the bait. But oftentimes, it’s not even about matching the size of the bait, it’s about getting your lure to them when they’re active. In that case, I mean the bigger the walking bait the better, so like a full-size Strike King Sexy Dog or even the Mega Dog.
“And then, once that schooling stuff is over or you just don’t have any more schooling fish, I like to throw a frog up on whatever kind of slop or pads you have right now. That also works for early morning, too. And then for general fishing, it’s tough, because they’ve been in the brush piles and they’ve been on the hard spots and they’ve been pounded on both of those. So you really have to hit a whole bunch of spots on these public lakes to catch them this time of year; I would say a drop shot and Carolina rig are probably still king right now for offshore.”
Great Lakes – Ben Nowak
“In June, my go-to bait is a dropshot for both largemouth and smallmouth. The one big difference is I’m going to go with something like a 6-inch Roboworm Fat or a 4.5-inch Roboworm for largemouth. But for smallmouth I’m going to go with a traditional dropshot bait, like a Great Lakes Finesse Drop Minnow or an Xcite Baits Minnobi. Something with a smaller profile that imitates a gobi, imitates a mayfly, imitates a baitfish in the water column. And then for the largemouth it’s more bluegill related.
“The other bait I’ll lean on is going to be some sort of topwater to cover water with, as well as fish through bluegill spawns and mayfly hatches. For largemouth, this will be a popper or popping frog. And for the smallmouth it is going to be either a popper during a mayfly hatch or some sort of walking bait to cover those expansive flats. Fish are going to be on beds, somme will be post-spawn, and you might even have some pre-spawners still roaming around. Being able to cover those flats for smallmouth is going to be key. The Heddon Super Spook Junior One Knocker is going to be my go to when I have to cover a lot of water for smallmouth.
“You’re going to have smallmouth still in pre-spawn and largemouth in the spawn and post-spawn. These fish will be shallow on isolated pieces of cover. Whenever I’m fishing largemouth I’m fishing docks, I’m fishing the inside grass lines right around spawning flats, I’m fishing areas where fish are going to be just transitioning off of bed and towards deeper water.
“And for smallmouth, I’m going to be fishing those flats. Anywhere that there are mayflies, I’m going to be focusing on those kind of slick water areas and current breaks. I’m going to be fishing spawning flats and then just start to push out to those first drops where fish will be suspended and just kind of hanging out.
New York – Joe Albanese
What stage the bass, smallmouth and large, are at in New York varies on a lake-by-lake basis at this point. Some lakes have bass on beds, while they are still suspended in others. And this is an evolving situation, with warming water temps and increasing daylight keeping things fluid. At least for the next couple of weeks, don’t expect things to remain steady.
Even within the Finger Lakes, bass behavior can vary widely. You’ll find largemouths in the shallows sitting on beds in one lake, but on the next one over they are still a few days behind the spawn. The smallies, for the most part, aren’t spawning yet, but this can change at any moment. Expect the unexpected for the foreseeable future.
On big lakes such as Erie, your best bet is to look for bass offshore, at least for the next little while. You’ll find bass suspended around the 15 foot mark in 35 feet of water. But again, this is all subject to change. You’re best bet is start looking at the 25 to 35 foot depths and adjust from there, running shallower as needed.
As far as baits for largemouth go right now, its tough to beat some sort of jig, a ChatterBait, or a CullShad in the shallows. If the lake you’re fishing. has some sort of emergent vegetation starting to show, you can start throwing a frog. On the smallmouth front, Keitechs, tubes, and Ned rigs should all produce.
