Hello,

First of all English isn’t my main language so sorry if I make any mistakes with some terms or measures since I’ll try to put everything in both metric and imperial units.

I live in Portugal (Europe) in the southern part, I have a decent sized dam near my place and fished some bass there, usually not too big, the biggest I’ve seen was about 2kg (4,4 pounds).

In the heat of summer it seems harder to catch any bass (I don’t care if I catch big or small ones I just wanna have more bites).

So basically my main question is, what sort of bait should I be using and what techniques?

I usually love using a senko worm on a size 1 hook since I’ve had a lot success on the past with it on another local lake. Sometimes I also like to throw a jig head tail grub or the occasional creature Texas rig.

Below I’ll add a picture of the dam in question (idk if it will help)

There’s some depth to it and some decent vegetation in some areas but not too much.

I also wanna add that the current temperature of the air in the summer is between 35-41 degrees Celsius or 95-105 Fahrenheit.

Any tips on what to use, where to focus, hook sizes and bait sizes would be lovely. Again I’d like options that allow for both small and big bass to bite.

Thank you so much and sorry for bothering with noobie questions.

As reference my PB on my local places is about 1.7 pounds or 800 grams. (Bass don’t get huge here like I said previously or at least that I’ve seen) I just wanna fish for fun not records. But a good size local record wouldn’t hurt 🫡😁.

Again thank you so much for any help.

welcome to BR.

 

Are you in a boat or on shore?

29 minutes ago, casts_by_fly said:

welcome to BR.

 

Are you in a boat or on shore?

I’m on shore 

1 hour ago, casts_by_fly said:

welcome to BR.

 

Are you in a boat or on shore?

 

I'd guess helicopter.

Looking at the picture, there’s pretty decent shore access from that roadway over the dam. 
 

My first thoughts are fan casting a spinnerbait along the shoreline and slow hopping a hula grub on a Tokyo rig up the bank. I see a few interesting looking rock formations that warrant investigation. 

47 minutes ago, ElGuapo928 said:

Looking at the picture, there’s pretty decent shore access from that roadway over the dam. 
 

My first thoughts are fan casting a spinnerbait along the shoreline and slow hopping a hula grub on a Tokyo rig up the bank. I see a few interesting looking rock formations that warrant investigation. 

Yeah I can fish the entire shore easily, and I’ll give those a try. You reckon crankbaits can work as well? Since I’ve been looking to get a few 

2 hours ago, WolfBones said:

I’m on shore 

 

So based on that, you're going to need to put in some legwork.  First, figure out what the baitfish are in the lake.  You might have done that already.  Then figure out where they are now. the various points and draws in the picture have varying steepness and flattening to them so put in the shoe leather (I'd think about an ebike) and start fishing around.

 

It doesn't look like a lake with much tree or aquatic vegetation in the water.  For something like that, crankbaits, jigs, topwaters, etc are all in play.  Your texas rigged senko is a good choice basically year round for big and small fish.  It is a slower way to fish, but will catch fish year round.  For me, I'd start with baits that can cover water at a range of depths.  A lipless crankbait would be a pretty good shout (there is a thread about them in the tackle section incidentally) as you can make long casts, fish it shallow or deep, draw reaction bites or target active chasers.  They catch bit and small bass.  If crayfish are in play, a wobble head would be another good water covering tool.  A 1/2 oz wobble head with a craw or beaver trailer will fish down to 15-18' reasonably well and you can cover water.

51 minutes ago, WolfBones said:

Yeah I can fish the entire shore easily, and I’ll give those a try. You reckon crankbaits can work as well? Since I’ve been looking to get a few 

Crankbaits shoud work just fine. I would get some of each type (lipless, squarebill, shallow diving (2-6 feet), medium diving (6-10 feet), and deep diving (anything deeper than 10 feet, all the way up to 20 feet if you have access to that depth of water). I would also recommend a few surface lures like a buzzbait or topwater frog, and even an original floating Rapala minnow lure to use as a Twich bait or super shallow wake bait. Good luck...that looks like a beautiful area to fish. 

43 minutes ago, casts_by_fly said:

 

So based on that, you're going to need to put in some legwork.  First, figure out what the baitfish are in the lake.  You might have done that already.  Then figure out where they are now. the various points and draws in the picture have varying steepness and flattening to them so put in the shoe leather (I'd think about an ebike) and start fishing around.

 

It doesn't look like a lake with much tree or aquatic vegetation in the water.  For something like that, crankbaits, jigs, topwaters, etc are all in play.  Your texas rigged senko is a good choice basically year round for big and small fish.  It is a slower way to fish, but will catch fish year round.  For me, I'd start with baits that can cover water at a range of depths.  A lipless crankbait would be a pretty good shout (there is a thread about them in the tackle section incidentally) as you can make long casts, fish it shallow or deep, draw reaction bites or target active chasers.  They catch bit and small bass.  If crayfish are in play, a wobble head would be another good water covering tool.  A 1/2 oz wobble head with a craw or beaver trailer will fish down to 15-18' reasonably well and you can cover water.

Thank you so much for all that info! I’ll surely put it all into good use. 

13 minutes ago, Kirtley Howe said:

Crankbaits shoud work just fine. I would get some of each type (lipless, squarebill, shallow diving (2-6 feet), medium diving (6-10 feet), and deep diving (anything deeper than 10 feet, all the way up to 20 feet if you have access to that depth of water). I would also recommend a few surface lures like a buzzbait or topwater frog, and even an original floating Rapala minnow lure to use as a Twich bait or super shallow wake bait. Good luck...that looks like a beautiful area to fish. 

Thank you so much for the help, crackbaits seem so fun I’m excited to try them out! 

1 hour ago, WolfBones said:

Yeah I can fish the entire shore easily, and I’ll give those a try. You reckon crankbaits can work as well? Since I’ve been looking to get a few 

Cranks should certainly work. I’d start with a lipless, and a shallow square bill, then work down the water column from there.

A Crank Bait should work well but I’d also suggest a Carolina Rig as well.

Find steep banks, long points or flats adjacent to the main creek channel where fish use the creek depth as highways, giving them access to shallow water and a quick retreat to deeper water.

 

A lot of good information here.
Summer heat is tough everywhere so hang tough.

Welcome to the site!!

Howdy and welcome.

 

If the fish see a lot of senkos, switch to another type of soft plastic, such as a lizard or a zoom trick worm.

I love fishing below dams. I want to be able to fish all depths and current efficiently. My bait choices are simple. Grubs on jig heads and spinners such as the Strike King Rocket Shads. Being i'm going to lose some lures jig and grubs  cover all depths well and inexspensive.

 

  There doesnt seem to any water going over the spillway . So ignore my post.

Fish the points and eddies.  Anywhere there is a break in the bottom surface is a good bet that it will hold fish.  Rock to mud, big rocks to little rocks, rock to weed, etc.  Personally I would start by fishing moving baits off of the longest points, casting as far out as possible, and casting at different angles if possible to get the bait to move across points, not just straight out and straight back to the bank.  Depending on how deep those points drop off, I would target the 15 foot depth in the water column without really knowing where the fish are holding.  This means you will want to throw an 18 to 20 foot diving crankbait to bounce off the bottom, or a solid 1/2oz or bigger spinnerbait or paddle tail swimbait.  I would use a generic shad color to start.  Electric shad color usually does well for bass no matter where you are fishing.  From there I would move to jigs, tubes, and large texas rigged worms in natural patterns fishing the bottom structure of the points and eddies.  Hop them through the rocks and drag them through the mud.  Early in the morning and late in the evening I would also try a topwater like a megabass giant dog x in a bone or natural shad color across the points much in the same manner described above.  Last thought, depending on the sun angle, I would also try to fish the shade lines as much as possible.

On 8/11/2025 at 11:01 AM, WolfBones said:

In the heat of summer it seems harder to catch any bass

 

It's that way in the states too. In the spring, bass load up on energy to get through the spawn. In the fall, they load up on energy to get through the winter. In the summer, there's not the imperative to feed. I own a LOT of crankbaits, but I still chose soft plastics 90% of the time in the summer. I did catch a couple four-pounders this morning with a popper, so if you're not throwing the occasional surface lure early or late in the day, I would. 

2 hours ago, Rockhopper said:

Fish the points and eddies.  Anywhere there is a break in the bottom surface is a good bet that it will hold fish.  Rock to mud, big rocks to little rocks, rock to weed, etc.  Personally I would start by fishing moving baits off of the longest points, casting as far out as possible, and casting at different angles if possible to get the bait to move across points, not just straight out and straight back to the bank.  Depending on how deep those points drop off, I would target the 15 foot depth in the water column without really knowing where the fish are holding.  This means you will want to throw an 18 to 20 foot diving crankbait to bounce off the bottom, or a solid 1/2oz or bigger spinnerbait or paddle tail swimbait.  I would use a generic shad color to start.  Electric shad color usually does well for bass no matter where you are fishing.  From there I would move to jigs, tubes, and large texas rigged worms in natural patterns fishing the bottom structure of the points and eddies.  Hop them through the rocks and drag them through the mud.  Early in the morning and late in the evening I would also try a topwater like a megabass giant dog x in a bone or natural shad color across the points much in the same manner described above.  Last thought, depending on the sun angle, I would also try to fish the shade lines as much as possible.

Those are amazing advices I’ll go there after tomorrow and Friday to try all those out! Thank you so much.

 

also I love using wacky rigs do you think those can work ok?

49 minutes ago, WolfBones said:

also I love using wacky rigs do you think those can work ok?

If you find them grouped up in the shallow eddies I think that could work, but big open water like that it is hard to use finesse presentations without knowing where the fish are.

44 minutes ago, Rockhopper said:

If you find them grouped up in the shallow eddies I think that could work, but big open water like that it is hard to use finesse presentations without knowing where the fish are.

So since its very open without a lot of structure I should probably use grubs, cranks and maybe some frogs and stuff that covers lots of area quickly?

Looking at your picture more and thinking about the actual grade of the river, assuming upstream of the dam matches the downstream side, it looks like you have a nice ledge on both sides that would hold fish too.  If the water level is the same as what is shown in the photo, it would still have to be a bomb cast, but there is not that much head there and that ledge should be in about the 20 to 30 foot depth.  If the water is that low, the upstream side of the dam is probably in the 40 to 50 foot depth range at its deepest estimating from this photo provided.  Thats a pretty short dam in height and even at full pool is probably in the 100 to 120 foot depth.  If you can reach that natural ledge under water with a cast, you may have some success there.  Looks like you would need to be on the bank to the left side of the photo to have a chance with that.  You'd still need to bomb a 50 yard cast and let that bait sink about 30 feet to get to that ledge.

 

I'd target the areas in red with deeper moving baits and bottom contact, and green with shallower baits. Blue line is a rough guess of where that ledge would be if it exists upstream side.

 

7 hours ago, WolfBones said:

So since its very open without a lot of structure I should probably use grubs, cranks and maybe some frogs and stuff that covers lots of area quickly?

A couple summer techniques we use on fairly “clean” banks that might work for you are:

 

Big worm (10” or larger) on a Texas rig with a tiny weight (1/16 or 3/32 oz) The slow fall will draw some attention from lethargic fish.

 

Another thought would be a smallish (3 or 4 inch) plastic swimbait on an underspin hook. Use a moderate retrieve with random pauses and twitches of the rod tip. 

Wall the bank at Sunrise. Throw a rapala f9 or f11(I use silver/black or gold/black) parallel to the bank.

Tight Lines 

10 hours ago, ElGuapo928 said:

 

A couple summer techniques we use on fairly “clean” banks that might work for you are:

 

Big worm (10” or larger) on a Texas rig with a tiny weight (1/16 or 3/32 oz) The slow fall will draw some attention from lethargic fish.

 

Another thought would be a smallish (3 or 4 inch) plastic swimbait on an underspin hook. Use a moderate retrieve with random pauses and twitches of the rod tip. 

How do you typically fish a Texas rig? Slow drag on the bottom? And near the back perpendicular to it or deep to shallow?

10 hours ago, ElGuapo928 said:

 

A couple summer techniques we use on fairly “clean” banks that might work for you are:

 

Big worm (10” or larger) on a Texas rig with a tiny weight (1/16 or 3/32 oz) The slow fall will draw some attention from lethargic fish.

 

Another thought would be a smallish (3 or 4 inch) plastic swimbait on an underspin hook. Use a moderate retrieve with random pauses and twitches of the rod tip. 

I meant bank not back on my reply above sorry 

16 hours ago, Rockhopper said:

Looking at your picture more and thinking about the actual grade of the river, assuming upstream of the dam matches the downstream side, it looks like you have a nice ledge on both sides that would hold fish too.  If the water level is the same as what is shown in the photo, it would still have to be a bomb cast, but there is not that much head there and that ledge should be in about the 20 to 30 foot depth.  If the water is that low, the upstream side of the dam is probably in the 40 to 50 foot depth range at its deepest estimating from this photo provided.  Thats a pretty short dam in height and even at full pool is probably in the 100 to 120 foot depth.  If you can reach that natural ledge under water with a cast, you may have some success there.  Looks like you would need to be on the bank to the left side of the photo to have a chance with that.  You'd still need to bomb a 50 yard cast and let that bait sink about 30 feet to get to that ledge.

 

I'd target the areas in red with deeper moving baits and bottom contact, and green with shallower baits. Blue line is a rough guess of where that ledge would be if it exists upstream side.

Thank you so much for all that info! Really helpful! Appreciate you.