GUNTERSVILLE LAKE
By Reed Montgomery
Reeds Guide Service
Website; www.fishingalabama.com
Lake Level; Full Pool
Summer on Guntersville Lake
Recent trips in June to Guntersville Lake in North Alabama have shown it to be the hottest Lake in Alabama...the best bass fishing I've seen in years!
These are not hard to catch bass either! No need for tiring techniques like deep cranking all day, combined with Carolina rigging various plastics, fishing with small finesse worms on light line, flipping a jig all day long, or even dragging a football head jig combo or big worm in deep water.
Not to say that these techniques do not work all throughout the hot days of summer. On this soon to be "wonderful day of bass fishing" it only took a handfull of lures, covering shallow water, to entice the bigger bass.
Just easy-to-fool bass. Big Bass in shallow water, like most anglers like to fish for!
Here's an example of a recent trip to Guntersville Lake, most anglers only dream of.
I met a client of Reeds Guide Service at the dock on a calm, overcast weekday. A perfect scene - in any anglers eyes - awaited us on our first stop. Schooling bass!
With several topwater lures already rigged and ready my client hooked up into a nice 4 pound bass, before I could even get the trolling motor in the water! A great fish to start the day. Little did we know it was the beginning of a day neither of us will ever forget!
I was getting that bass out of the net when, on his second cast of the day, fishing with a Jimmy Houston signature series Zara Super Spook, the elated client hooked an even bigger bass. It later turned out to weigh 6 pounds, along with two others that looked to weigh the same!
For right then, we just threw the bass in the livewell, to get in on the topwater action taking place right in front of the boat, frantic feeding action...that usually stops just after dawn when the sun pops out. Then we could take pictures! But not on this day.
We could not have planned a more perfect outing. Not only did the sun not even appear all day, but we were soon greeted with light rain and absolutly no one in sight. Just these variables alone made it even better than one of those hot summer days with a crowd evident every where you fish.
To make a long story short, the client asked me to join him and together we had at least 60 bites! We landed 50 of those bass, three 6 pounders, two 5 pounders and at least a dozen 3-4 pound bass. Not to mention all of those smaller 1-2 pounders! An incredible day in any anglers log book.
Most of the bass we fooled that day came while fishing in water less than 3 feet deep. We caught them on Zara Spooks, Sammies, prop-baits and popping type topwaters. It was a day when any lure normally fished in shallow water, would work.
We sat in one spot, lowered the outboard motor, and just fished weightless lures casting all around the boat. We had over 25 bass in that one spot alone!
Zoom's Trick worms, fished weightless on 12-15 pound test Trilene Big Game line with a 3/0 Gamakatsu EWG Wide Gap hook, fooled several of our biggest bass. We used colors of white, bubblegum, limetreuce and methiolate which were the best colors, although I think any color would have worked!
Noisy, clacker-type buzzbaits would generate strikes, but we missed several good bass, which were very evident by the aggresive strikes or huge boils left behind. Even with trailer hooks we missed em.' We immediatly followed up on these buzzbait strikes with a return lure. A slower sinking lure like the Trick worm, soft jerkbaits and Senkos.
Other lures that worked that day were Scum frogs in colors of white, lime or chartreuce. Fished on flipping rods, 20 pound line and utilizing very long casts far back into some very weedy flats.
Also 1/4 ounce white tandem gold and silver willow leaf blades spinnerbaits, chartreuce chatterbaits and some bass were fooled with various types of suspending jerkbaits and shallow running shad colored crankbaits. With a pearl colored Rapala suspending jerkbait the best!
Just another great day on the water with lots of Big Bass action! On Guntersville Lake - Alabama's hottest big bass lake - for the entire summer!
E-mail me at; alabassgyd@aol.com or call today to book your trip with Reeds Guide Service (205) 787-5133. Guntersville lake's oldest, profesional guide service. Fishing and guiding on this lake and other Alabama lakes for over 40 years!
Thanks and Good Fishin'
Reed Montgomery
