By mid-summer Guntersville Lake's largemouth bass have gotten rather settled into their daily summer routine's. Yes, there are many.
Some bass are constantly on the feed making their summertime homes in and around shallow water aquatic weeds. These bass may stay in water depths less than 5 feet deep all summer long.
While other largemouth bass (and a few spotted bass), make their summertime homes on massive Guntersville Lake (Alabama's largest, man made reservoir), along deep water drops.
Often these deep water bass gather in some very preferred places. Sometimes they stay there.
So preferred -- due to the availibility of current, less light penetration or most importantly, the availibility of food -- that huge schools of bass can be found all mingling together in one lone spot.
Then there are those daytime nomadic bass of Guntersville Lake. Bass that stay on the move no matter what the conditions reveal.
Following schools of baitfish, scrounging the lake's bottom for crayfish. Or just following travel routes feeding from sun up until sun down.
Then you have those nocturnal, nomadic bass. Bass that feed and roam around at night.
FISHING REPORT
On a recent hot, mid-July trip (fishing 9 hours from 5 a.m. until 2 p.m.) on Guntersville Lake we discovered a sudden, cloudy day can mean there is no reason to fish deeper water.
That is, unless you just want to leave a big school of bass that suddenly just moved into some very shallow water.
These are shallow water oriented largemouth bass.
There may be a lot of bass holding along deep water drops, some as deep as 15-20 feet on some days. Especially very sunny days.
But if you just happen to get a day like we had then take advantage of it. Rain or clouds all day are rare during the summer months, but these conditions always bring Guntersville Lake's bass shallow.
Some bass are loners making their own decisions to move. While other bass are in schools that prefer to move all together, due to Guntersville Lake's ever-changing conditions.
We started this cloudy morning fishing topwater lures in shallow, weedy water.
We were in the mid-lake region, fishing shallow weedy cuts, islands, pockets and main lake flats situated just below North Sauty Creek.
Then we made a move, unknown to us at the time, where we would stay the rest of the day.
Two 5 pound bass, one caught on a chrome / black back zara super spook and another on a green Snagproof frog, started the early morning period off right, actually with a bang!
The clouds hung in there and to our surprise rain at midday! The sun only came out for about 30 minutes all day! So we stayed in shallow water fishing from 1-4 feet deep until about 2 p.m.
Not only did we boat two really nice five pounders at dawn, but several more big bass came on topwater lures afterwards.
At almost 12 p.m. -- in a 30 minute period in 2 feet of thin, weedy water --, we had three more hogs!
A 4 pounder caught on the spook, a 5 pounder on the frog and a skinny, long 7 pounder! It too hit the spook.
That 7 pounder, biggest bass of the day, would have weighed another half pound if it had been eating regularly! In all a great summertime day!
For those of you not counting...culling the three dozen smaller ones, our five best bass would have easily weighed over 26 pounds! All of these bass were caught before 2 p.m.!
This is what it usually takes to win a spring time tournament, often much more weight than this!
But for right now, like on most summertime lakes, anglers five bass bags of bass are a little on the smaller side.
So this would have been a good sack of bass that possibly could win most bass tournaments right now! Just wanted to emphasize...the size!
Keep on chunkin' that big school of bass may move in on you at any time!
Thanks, Reed Montgomery
Owner of Reeds Guide Service (205)663-1504
Birmingham, Alabama
Website: www.fishingalabama.com
"Guntersville Lake's Oldest, Professional Bass Fishing Only Guide Service, For Over 40 Years"
