Summer Spotted Bass Secrets (Topwater ALL Day)

All right, summertime spotted bass fishing.

I absolutely love fishing for spotted bass. I do it all the time at home on Lake Lanier, all around the country. Anytime I can fish for spots, I'm a happy man. And if I had to pick one time a year that I would say. I guess I could take the most advantage of my skill set. It would be summertime spotted bass fishing.

The number one thing for me in the summertime when it comes to spotted bass is brush piles, 100% and they're going to be anywhere from 15 all the way out to 40 foot typically. And those spotted bass, they're going to suspend over the tops of the brush piles. Spotted bass, they're, they're suspended fish by nature. We catch them on the bottom, especially in the spring and the winter. But in the summertime, the spotted bass want to be suspended. They get on the bottom at night, but as soon as that sun pops out, they're looking for a brush pile, a timber top, a bait ball, something to get on. Suspend on and my number one way to catch them all summer long is going to be two things. It's going to be a top water.

A top water is what I want to throw all the time if I can get away with it for spotted bass. And if you're on Lake Lanier, Lake Hartwell, Clarksville, anywhere with herring in it, that top water is going to be absolutely killer. And one thing a lot of people don't realize coming to the lakes is when we think of top water fishing, we think of doing it right off the rip in the morning. But for spotted bass, especially on brush piles, it can be noon, middle of the day. And slick and that'll be your best top water bite of the day.

And what you're doing is you're calling those spotted bass up out of the structure they're sitting on, whether it's a brush pile, timber, whatever it might be, they're suspended over top of it. You can do it without live scope. You can do it with live scope. But if you have live scope, you can point out there, you can see them suspended over that cover. And the goal for me is always to get that top water bait out there past the brush pile. And I want to bring it over them. If you hit them short or you land right on top of them, it usually doesn't look very natural to them. You want it to look like a bait fish coming over top of them. So I want to get past those fish, I want to bring my top water bait over the brush, call those spotted bass up and. It's an absolute feeding frenzy. When you get them going. It's really fun.

As far as specific top water baits go, there's quite a few good ones. If if I had to pick two, it'd be a Bullet Pop and a J-Walker. So a walking style bait. The J-Walker is more of a finesse walk-in style bait. And the Bullet Pop, obviously that's a popper. It's really loud. Believe it or not, on the calmest sunny days, you can absolutely destroy them on that big loud popper. Really really like Chrome and Bone as my two colors if you want to keep it really simple. That's all you need. It's cloudy. Throw bone. If it's if it's cloudy out, throw bone. If it's sunny out, throw Chrome. And if I had to pick one to be Chrome, it works in sunny and cloudy conditions. But if it's sunny out, make sure you've got some Chrome in that bait that or a clear based color. And yeah, I'm always I'm focused on calling those fish to the surface top water baits.

I like a fluke style bait a lot as well and a Sebile Magic Swimmer. So I'm I'm never for me personally if I'm around herring spotted bass in the. I don't want to throw anything mid water column, I don't want to bring them to the bottom. If you want to trigger big spots, especially with herring present, you want to call them to the surface and you just have to figure out what bait they want, whether it's that more walking style bait, a Bullet Pop, a Sabile Magic swimmer, A fluke style bait, anything like that. You know you just want to play it based off your conditions. Heavier wind, I really like that Sabile Magic Swarmer, calmer conditions. I go more towards the top waters and the fluke style baits. But if you have a good heavy wind day, we got a pretty good wind behind. Just right now, I really like that magic swimmer. I can throw it really far. I keep my rod tip up. I want that bait waking under the surface again. I'm trying to call those fish to the surface and when they come up on it, it looks just like a blue back and they go they go absolutely nuts on it.

But as far as setups for those baits for the top water, I really like braid. I mean, it's it's kind of a no brainer, but you can throw it really far and we make really, really long cast for these spotted bass. Usually when you're fishing for them, you're in Clearwater and I'm throwing it all the way, you know, 120 a 130. Under 40 foot, so I'm gonna have 40 LB braid on. I'm gonna have a short mono leader. A foot or two foot a mono leader. And I'm going to have it on a 7’1” medium power moderate fast action rod. And the reason I have that rod is I don't want anything really heavy because I already have braid on there and the braid doesn't have much stretch. So you're kind of using the rod to cancel that out. And it's, I mean, you, you really do not lose many on that setup. So that's what I like for the top water.

And then the Sebile Magic Swimmer. I've actually really liked throwing it on mono, as crazy as that sounds. It keeps the bait up in the column and like I said, that bait be waking on the surface is really important. So for for that Berkley Magic Swimmer, I throw it on just a 73 medium heavy, 15 or 20 LB mono and just a high gear ratio reel 8 to 1. Same with the top water. Pretty much anytime I fish for spotted bass, I want the highest gear ratio I can get away with so I can get them in quick, make another cast, they come up school and I want to get to them quick. Anything like that. I'm always throwing high gear ratio reels, so. High gear on that and then for the fluke style bait I always throw it on a spinning rod 71. Medium action spinning rod, 8 LB braid to a 15 LB fluorocarbon leader. I use all Fenwick World Class stuff and Abu Reels 8 LB X5 braid. That's my favorite. And those are kind of the setups for those.

And the one other thing in the summer, if you can't, if you're not seeing them suspended as much on cover or you can't call those fish to the surface, say they're out there on bait balls. They're just swimming around in open water. The jig head minnow, it's it's super hard to beat. I mean, you can you can get out there with forward facing sonar. Like I said earlier, spotted bass, they're very nomadic and if they're not on that structure, if they're chasing bait around or they're just swimming out in the middle of the lake like spotted bass like to do, there's no better way to target them than that jig head minnow.

The difference with spotted bass verse largemouth, even sometimes smallmouth, spotted bass and smallmouth, they're a lot more similar than spots in largemouth, but you get those spots man. They like that minnow fast. We've seen so many guys with big large. But they work that bait in more of a horizontal fashion. It's just kind of, you know, rolling along the spotted bass. When they see that bait, I want to start pulling it from them quickly. They're aggressive fish. And if you make them think they're not going to be able to get it, they're going to come up and they're going to get it. So I'm, I'm working that bait a lot quicker than than I normally would for a large mouth. Or if I'm trying to pull, pull a fish out of cover, I want to get to that fish quick, let them see it, pull it quick. And if they're going to eat it, usually it's going to happen within a second or within a second or two of them. In that date, the largemouth a lot of the times. They'll track the bait for a while and they'll eat it.

What I've noticed was spotted bass, You know, I've been fishing for him for 15 to 20 years now. And what I've noticed with them is if they're going to eat a bait, it's usually going to happen pretty Dang quick. So I'm going to work that thing quick. They don't eat it. I'm going to find another one to throw at. And as far as head sizes go, you really just want to match that to how deep your fish are. So if you have fish in 40 foot that are swimming really fast and bait balls, I'll go all the way up to a three quarter oz. Whereas if I have fish really high in the water column, really shallow, really spooky. I'll go all the way down to an eighth ounce, but still working that bait quick 7’2” medium light action rod, same deal, 8 LB braid. I got a little custom double handle on here, something I like for for minnow fishing. Gives you a little more control.

And yeah, that's a really good 1-2 punch In the summertime. You're either calling those fish to the surface. Off of cover and if they're not on the cover and they're in the bait balls suspended around a little more, you can go down to them with that jig head minute. But top water fishing in the summer for me for spotted bass, absolutely killer. I'll do it all day long, daylight to dark.