As we are quickly progressing into the summer time fishing a few things change the fisherman’s thought process; the first and most important is location. “Fish where the fish are.” You just cannot be successful in the heat of the summer unless you understand the factors that move fish to certain locations; especially the bigger fish. 

There is probably no time of year where fisherman struggle more than in the summer time and to me this is just a failure to find the right type of location and to find that area holding fish, it takes some understanding of what typical patterns are holding fish. I tell many customers that the first thing you must do is start looking where all the research says they ought to be located. Do your research, understand the typical patterns and start there. My summertime is divided into two phases; the early summer time is all about deep fishing deep structure, ledges and deep humps off the river areas. 

I fish all the deeper structure I can find from stumps to shell beds, my baits are pretty typical as I love to run a deep running SPRO crank bait especially over shell beds, when that crank bait gets hopping off the bottom it is deadly. Deep structure fishing wouldn’t be without a ½ to ¾ oz Tight-Line football jig with a Missile Bait trailer, presenting it over deep structure can be very rewarding. 

The second half of the summer is finding shallow water near deep water, like points, the mouth of coves and humps around bridges, these areas become targets for bass as the bait moves quickly to the shallow water facing the rivers ledge. You see the warmer water in the shallows as the summer progresses actually hold the bait and have more oxygen than the deep water. To me this starts the fish being active as we progress toward fall fishing, where baits like Missile baits Shock Wave swim baits and top water ought to produce. “Fish where the fish are,” old cliché with lots of great meanings!

Fish with Captian Mike Gerry on Famous Lake Guntersville, Visit:www.fishlakeguntersvilleguideservice.com