Summer Offshore Bass Strategies

Call it “summer vacation.” After the postspawn, most largemouth bass that live on river systems typically head out to the ledges, where they lounge in deeper, cooler water and leverage current flow for feeding advantage.

Everyone has their favorite bait, but this isn’t a popularity contest. Fact is, most productive days of offshore ledge fishing involve a diverse bait selection and a clear understanding of bass behavior.

It’s all about opportunistic strategy and time management. Essentially, the biggest fish in the school typically get first crack at the food sources rolling along the ledge, so you want to make sure you’re picking off the toads first.

For one thing, nabbing those high-value targets makes more sense than weeding through smaller fish with an ever-decreasing chance of fooling the big, wary ones. Moreover, hooked fish often bring interested others to the boat, so as much as we love to bend the rod, too much of a good thing will ruin the moment by moving the school.

Following the traditional plan, locating and stimulating a school with a football jig, Carolina rig, or a big Texas-rigged worm and then targeting those top-end fish with big, aggressive offerings like crankbaits, swimbaits and big spoons, makes sense. When the bite slows, mop up with those bottom contact baits and then pick up any stragglers with lighter looks such as drop shots or shaky heads.

Veteran Bassmaster Elite Mark Menendez has played this game for years, but he notes the need to factor in heavy fishing pressure. On Lakes like Chickamauga with increasing numbers of anglers sharing relatively few key ledge areas, he’s seen bass behavior shifting more each year.

“Those fish get educated pretty quickly, so when they get out on the preferred areas, they kinda spread out and become inactive,” Menendez said. “You have to reverse your thought process and come through more with finesse, than a power fishing style.”

Find the Sweet Spots

Without question, fishing pressure will cause ledge fish to relocate. Each time the schools busts up and repositions, the fish will settle on some type of ledge anomaly. Could be a subtle point, a turn or a drain mouth, but while he spends plenty of time side scanning for such attractions, he recognizes how modern technology enables anglers to search for the really discreet stuff.

“Forward-facing sonar allows me to find the spot-on-the-spot faster,” he said. “Generally, those sweet spots are hard spots, or hard cover. The magical ones are the hard spots that are out on the middle of a flat with current flow related to them.

“The ones that are on a 2-mile stretch of ledge where the only hard spot exists due to shells or some natural rock formation, those are the beautiful ones. That’s generally where you’re going to get a bigger-than-average school.”

As he points out, current is key, so pay attention to local and upstream rainfall and know the daily power generation schedule (published by the dam operators—TVA, USACE, etc.). Early morning flurries are common, but you can bet that when they start moving water in the afternoons, those fish will nose into their current breaks and gobble whatever they can catch.

“That hard spot gives you a little rise on the bottom of maybe 6 to 12 inches and that becomes enough of a current break for those fish to exist when the water is moving,” he said. “Those spots are hard to find on a depth finder with side scan, 2D sonar or even forward-facing when you have a little bit of wind and waves, so it’s very important to have a marker buoy on the bow of your boat.

“When you do find it with your rod and reel, you can pitch that buoy out beside the boat. This gives you a quick point of reference to the angle at which you made that cast and from which the resulting fish catch occurred. That’s as old-school as it gets, but sometimes, old stuff really works well.”

Once he finds his little hard spots with a Texas-rigged Strike Anaconda or 7-inch Cut-R Worm (both plum or green pumpkin) or a Carolina-rigged Strike King Game Hawg (Bamabug or green pumpkin), Menendez will pepper the target with a Strike King 6xd or 10 XD, unless the top of the ledge runs shallower; then it’s a Strike King 5xd or Series 5.

If the lake’s getting hammered, and the fish aren’t liking the aggressive stuff, he’ll switch to a drop shot with a Strike King Filler Worm in morning dawn.

A couple more points to keep in mind.

Don’t Diss the Drum: Largely considered time-wasters, old rubber lips, gaspergou, grinder — aka freshwater drum — often grab the same crankbaits, swimbaits and jigs intended for bass. Frustrating, but what does that tell you? Find drum and you’re probably in a promising spot.

Don’t Wear Out Your Welcome: We often hear tournament anglers speak of “managing fish”—catching what they need for the event’s preliminary rounds, in hopes of making a good spot last for multiple days. That’s a sensible strategy, but not only for competitive events.

Fun fishing also benefits from prudence, so give a good spot a break and cycle back every couple of hours. You’ll be surprised what a breather can do for the school.

---