I hate not covering water in a timely manner! Got better things to do. When the bite slows, my presentation also consists of going smaller – 1.5″-4″ soft plastics. Crankbaits are the usual size: 2 3/4″ with medium length bills that dive 3′.
Recently a buddy I fish with convinced me to troll a crankbait parallel to shore in 4-7′. On some days he does excellent catching not only bass, but decent size crappie. We did catch a few small bass and one 12″ crappie, but bite locations were scattered between water 2-6′. The lake has no pads but does have many overhanging branches and shaded rocky shorelines. Unshaded shallow water shorelines and wide flats that dropped from 3-6′ also held fish under a bright sun.
Obviously the best way to hit fish under those trees was casting small soft plastics on 1/16 oz ball head jigs. Skirted jigs with trailer may have worked, but I wanted to work those areas faster without bumping bottom. Example shown. The same lure was used to cover more water in unshaded areas along with a nose-hooked 3″ white stick and 5″ Kut Tail worm on a 1/32 oz jig with $2 hook. The action applied using rod tip twitches cause a darting action which covers water fast though with pauses. This has caught panfish and bass all year.
Would a spinnerbait have done well. In summer under a bright sun, the only blade lure I would cast would be a Beetle Spin and jighead with either no action tail or action tail. the smaller flash under those conditions seems to tick fish off more that a large strobe-like Colorado or willow leaf blade.
Sorry for the long dissertation, but hopefully even a little might be useful. It helped us log 34 fish on a slow summer’s day in Aug.
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