This summer I've spent alot of time fishing topwaters at dusk and have been trying to understand any patterns affecting the bite. I typically fish about a dozen different lakes (5-30 acres) with almost no fishing pressure (you must portage a boat). I typically fish 6-10pm, and usually switch to topwaters at about 7:30-8. I've watched the weather and can't make any connections. We can have 5 days of cookie cutter weather and each time on the water is different. Somedays the fishing becomes better with increasing darkness and other times it gets worse. But lately I've noticed even the bite itself is different even when the fish are active. The bass sometimes seem to pluck it off the top and other times they hit it very violently. For a given trip, 80% of the fish will fall into on category or the other. The only correlation I have found is the fishing technique. I usually use popper type lures and if the lake has small clumps of weeds or floating scum and I skip the lure over these 2-3 ft obstructions on the retrieve, they usually violently hit it upon landing.

Its just seems odd that there are days when the fish are jumping completely out of the water when hitting it and other days they just seem to gingerly pluck it off the top. On the days they are "supercharged" they will even hit it more than once if the miss it on the first strike. Those are they days I that make it all worth while.

Same style water, same tactics and baits and different times of the month.... what is different?  Moon phase at any given time during the mth. Time tables for rise, over, set or under on any given day. And/or weather patterns or pressures are the variables. I feel your pain and we have been in a not so great moon phase the last few days. But we can still find some hungry fish if we search hard enough.

Big O

When pressure is riseing fish structure and around grass . they seem to hide when pressure is on the rise . Wind i like to throw spinners with 4 willow leaf blades . Hope this helps