Entry 317-5

How to Catch Bass from Texas to New York with James Niggemeyer

Part 5: Choose Where to Fish for Summer Lunkers

Question: James, how do you take a lake that you’ve never fished before and try and break it down to the portion of the lake where you need to spend most of your time?

Niggemeyer: I start by studying maps of the lake I’m going to fish. Regardless of what lake you fish in any section of this country, the one element that you can almost always key on is you’ll generally find the best fishing near some type of flat. A bass can spend most of its life on a flat. It can feed there, spawn there, there’s usually habitat it can live in there, and in cold weather, the bass can slide off the edge of that flat and swim into deep water. Usually there’s a lot of cover and structure associated with a flat.

So, I’ll start by going to a flat and making sure I get two or three bites on a specific type of cover. Now I can take what I’ve learned on the flat and look around the lake for other areas that may be at about the same water depth or that may be the same type of structure where I’ve gotten bites on the flat.I hope to find a big school of bass holding at that water depth and on that kind of cover where I’ve gotten a bite on the flat. Then I take the information I learn on a flat and then try to expand it into other areas.

Question: If you were fishing this month on Lake Fork, your home lake in Texas, how would you fish?

Niggemeyer: This time of year on Lake Fork and on many other southern lakes, I’ll concentrate my practice and the places where I’ll be searching for bass on the lower portion of the lake, down near the dam. Lake Fork has three arms that feed the lake. If you break the lake down into three parts, you’ve got the part of the lake down by the dam, the middle portion of the lake and the three forks. The reason I’d concentrate my fishing down near the dam is during August the bass are moving out to main-lake structure.

At Lake Fork, there’s a lot of main-lake structure and cover by the dam. This part of the lake during August also seems to have the most bait holding there. On that section of the lake, I can fish 30-feet deep and catch bass or move up to the lily pads and catch bass in 4 feet of water by adjusting to where the bass are and determining how to catch them in different depths of water without having to make a long run in my boat.

For instance, if I’ve got a cloudy day, I can fish with the Strike King Rage Toad in the lily pads and catch bass in 4 feet of water, but if the next day is sunny and bright, I can move out to 20 or 30 feet and catch bass with Strike King’s new Thumper Worm, the Anaconda, the Football Head Jig or even the new Series 6 XD crankbait. I also can fish main lake flats and points and offshore structure without burning a lot of gas through my big engine while I’m trying to figure out where the bass are and how to catch them.

Question: What’s your second choice for a region of Lake Fork or any other lake to fish at this time of year?

Niggemeyer: Probably the middle section of the lake is where I’ll fish. Once again, there’s a lot of the same types of structure and fishing that you expect to have down near the dam. The least-important area for me is usually the upper end of the lake, since generally that section contains less deep water, and the creek and river channels are the only access to deep water that the bass may have. However, on the lower end of the lake, there’s plenty of deep water and usually lots of different structure types. So, this is how I’ll pick apart Lake Fork this month and I’ll start with this same philosophy on most other southern lakes during August.

Contents:

• Part 1: A Span of 1,500 Miles and They're Still Just Bass
• Part 2: New York Has Largemouths, and I Can Catch Them on the Same Strike King Lures I Use in Texas
• Part 3: Practice Down South to Catch Bass Up North
• Part 4: Being the New Guy in Tournament Bass Fishing
• Part 5: Choose Where to Fish for Summer Lunkers