By Daryl Bauer
It is middle of summer and admittedly I have not been on the water a lot. Actually, I have been in the water cooling off more than on the water, casting. However, there was a short trip “out west” and I spent some time catching a few fish while I was out there. . . .
With the heat, my sessions were relatively short and most of them confined to evenings. I did try for some panfish one sun-drenched afternoon. After an hour of wind and heat, I decided a couple, three bluegills was going to be enough for that effort.
Did not catch a lot of fish. Most evenings consisted of drying off a couple, three fish–typical for mid-summer.
Managed some more smallies:
Love smallmouth bass! It is always a good day whenever I catch at least one good-sized one.
Spent one evening on a windswept reservoir shoreline where I had done well on mid-summer white bass in the past. Conditions seemed good to me, but must not have been so much for the whites. I caught one. Thought there would be a bunch more, but that was it.
Another evening I wanted to check a favorite spot. This water was renovated last fall. Figured it was time to see how the fish were doing, expected it was time to start fishing it again. It was. Took me a while to figure out what they wanted, and then I goofed up a couple of fish. Next thing I knew a thunderstorm was moving in, lightning started to flash, and I had to cut my time short.
Said all of that to say this: I was fixing to catch more fish, but weather trumps everything. I caught enough to know the fish are back and certainly big enough to be worth the effort. They will just keep getting bigger!
No fish were harmed in the making of this blog post. All were released immediately.
This little report was from some of our hottest weather this summer. Don’t make no difference, fish can still be caught then too.
The past few days have been much cooler than that. I have often noted that seasons change gradually; they do not follow the calendar. The fish know that the transition from summer to fall actually begins sooner than most anglers realize. Our recent cool weather should give you a hint. Some of the best open-water fishing of the year is just around the corner!