Entry 148-2

Shaw Grigsby Talks About Hot-Weather Bassing

When the Water’s Hot Up To the Top

Shaw GrigsbyEditor’s Note: When the weather’s so hot you can fry eggs on the sidewalk, bass often won’t bite. But tournament fishermen like Shaw Grigsby of Gainesville, Florida, have to fish and catch bass regardless of the weather conditions. This week, Grigsby, who travels the country participating in bass-fishing tournaments, has his own TV show and also commentates on ESPN for the Bassmasters Classic, shares tactics he uses to catch bass when most people sit at home in their air-conditioned houses, sipping glasses of iced tea.

Early in the morning and late in the evening, even when the weather’s extremely hot, you usually can catch bass on top-water lures, especially if you’re fishing over underwater vegetation like hydrilla, which produces oxygen. Early in the morning at first light, bass can get really excitable because the water’s cooler. The bass seem to feed better under the low-light conditions of early and late in the day.

Shaw GrigsbyI generally fish a Strike King Spit-N-King to get that early-morning reaction strike. I fish this bait along the edge of the grass and more importantly, over the holes in the grass. Anytime you can find a hole in the grass where there’s no grass growing, that’s a potential place to get a strike. Another good spot to get a strike is on grassy points where grass grows out into the lake. You’ll often see scattered grass right on the very ends of those points. Lake Guntersville in north Alabama is a terrific big-bass lake and has these points of grass that jut out into the lake with scattered grass on the ends of the points.

Besides the top-water popping baits, but I also fish a Strike King buzzbait. Both popping baits and buzzbaits fished in the pockets of grass on grassy points and along edges of grass, can produce good numbers of bass early before the weather gets hot, and late just before dark. I fish the top-water lures fast across the surface of the water. I’ll move a top-water lure about as fast as I’ll move a slow-moving buzzbait. When I fish a top-water chugger like the Spit-N-King, I’ll move it at the same speed I’ll move a buzzbait, because whether it’s early or late in the day, the bass are feeling better, willing to chase baits and also willing to attack baits.

Shaw GrigsbyWhen you’re fishing a buzzbait early and/or late, remember to always use a trailer hook because you’ll have a lot of short-striking bass attack the bait. Many times, the bass will strike at the bubbles a buzzbait makes instead of actually striking the lure. Therefore, if you have a trailer hook on the back of your buzzbait, you’ll catch a number of bass that you may have missed if you don’t use the trailer hook.




 

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