Catching largemouth bass during an Arkansas summer isn't so hard.
It's the fishing that's hard. Hot, humid weather and glaring sunlight make it very uncomfortable to be on the water except in the morning or in the late evening.
Summer conditions affect fish behavior, too. Hot water, lack of current and low dissolved oxygen can make bass lethargic. Still they cope, seeking the coolest pockets in a water body and feeding opportunistically. If you put a bait in the right place at the right time, you can catch bass consistently throughout the summer.
Electronics
Modern, forward view electronic graphs have greatly simplified the "right place" factor. In the past, anglers could only hope that fish were in the cover they fished. Forward-view electronics, like Garmin's LiveScope, not only show if fish are present, but they also indicate how big the fish are, said Cameron Nesterenko of Sheridan, an avid angler. If a brushpile is unoccupied, you can move to the next one without wasting time on vacant cover.
By eliminating lifeless cover, forward-view graphs have allowed bass tournament anglers to fish more efficiently and more productively.
Current
Moving water influences bass movement and feeding behavior dramatically, Nesterenko said. Current funnels food down predictable pathways. When current flows, bass hover in the eddies behind current breaking structure and ambush baitfish and other prey that happen past.
Current also cools and oxygenates water, which can make bass more active and more aggressive. Current on reservoirs is artificially generated. It is the result of water moving into or out of a water body through a navigation lock or because of hydropower generation.
Incidents to illustrate this scenario are legion. One occurred while fishing with Ron Lappin, a longtime FLW tournament official, at Kentucky Lake, a Tennessee River impoundment. Smallmouth bass gathered near a massive boulder at a marina entrance. When a barge or boat locked into the lake, water moving into the lake positioned bass on one side of the rock. If a barge or boat locking out of the lake moved water the other direction, bass moved to the other side of the rock. Water moving against the rock revealed which way current moved. Lappin and I caught bass for several hours fishing one side or the other.
A more conspicuous incident occurred while fishing on Oklahoma's Verdigris River with Alan McGuckin, a publicist for several prominent pro fishing sponsors. The situation was the same as at Kentucky Lake except that intermittent current was stronger and more pronounced on a smaller, shallower waterway.
When a barge locked into the river, current surged into the backwater where McGuckin and I fished. For as long as it lasted, McGuckin and I caught a limit of big largemouths in the eddy of a small mud point.
Before the current started, there was no sign of a bass, and they vanished as soon as the current stopped. McGuckin predicted the phenomenon, but it seemed like a 10-minute miracle.
A third current event occurred on a McClellan-Kerr Navigation System pool during the 1994 Red Man All-American at Muskogee, Okla. I was a press observer for Bill Lawrence of Dumas, who found a sidewater with two rock lips. Late in the day, a barge locked into that pool and sent water surging into the sidewater. In rapid sequence, Lawrence hooked three large bass.
Finally, the last FLW tournament ever held was determined by current in 2018 at Lake Hamilton. Targeting current breaks in the upper part of the lake, the top performing anglers in that tournament relied on hydropower releases coming into the lake from Blakely Dam.
No current
Anglers long believed that lack of current made fish inactive.
Brent Ehler and his West Coast compatriots obliterated that perception in 2010 during an FLW tournament at Lake Ouachita. Water conditions were not dynamic during that event, but Ehler and company consistently weighed in heavy limits by targeting schools of big bass that cruised the banks in search of prey.
Nesterenko explained the phenomenon. In current, fish station behind structure in target-rich environments. The food comes to them, and they don't have to exert energy to get it. It's an efficient energy transfer.
When there's no current, bass might scatter all over a water body following baitfish, Nesterenko said. If you can find them, you can catch them. During the aforementioned FLW tournament, the West Coast anglers caught their bass with swimbaits, which at that time was a new and emerging trend in the South.
Florida strain largemouths are exceptions. You'll often find them against the bank in inches of water in the hottest weather. I encountered this phenomenon recently on a reservoir in Jefferson County. Bass were directly against the bank. They hit soft plastic lures and jigs pitched onto the bank and dragged slowly into the water. I've seen it consistently also at Lake Atkins.
Deep cover
As mentioned earlier, some bass hunker down in deep water when the water is hot and still. These are often big bass that expend the least amount of energy to obtain the highest caloric and protein intake.
A memorable illustration of this scenario occurred at Lake Maumelle while fishing with Mark Hedrick and Matthew Hedrick. In the late afternoon we did not catch a bass worth mentioning in any of the lake's most popular haunts.
In late evening we fished a spot in the deep, lower end. Electronics were not involved. The Hedricks knew the location of this particular structure by triangulating with landmarks on the shore.
With swimbaits, Matt Hedrick caught three better-than-average largemouths. I hooked what appeared to be an 8-pounder with a lipless crankbait. It threw the lure when it jumped. We also caught a mess of big crappie from that spot.
Streams
There's always current in a stream, which means bass will feed at some point in the day. I have noticed that their feeding spurts coincide dependably with the solunar tables that appear Thursdays and Sundays in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
I am frequently amazed to catch smallmouth and largemouth bass on topwater lures on streams in the hottest weather under bright blue skies. I often catch them chasing baitfish on shallow gravel flats. These are almost always small fish. The big ones hide under rocks and wait for an unsuspecting morsel to drift close enough for them to eat it without getting far from shade and protection.