Welcome to the Lowrance Forecast, where I give you my take on how weather and other conditions are likely to influence your fishing trips. In this first installment, I'll look at what those steamy summer rains do to your summer bass fishing.
Here are the conditions:
Season: Late spring/early summer
Water temperature: 75-85 degrees
Body of water: Large impoundment in the Southeast
It's been hot and dry for a week; then, on the first day of your trip, the skies open up and it pours. Rather than packing it in, you need to unpack the raingear and hold on — you're in for a treat.
Generally speaking, when you get a front that brings rain with it, the fish get active. The rain stirs up the lake, and the barometric pressure change gets them excited as well. When it's hot and muggy and bright for a long time, and then a thunderstorm calms everything down, the darker conditions will make bass more responsive to artificials. The changing conditions wake them up.
Going down the bank with moving baits after it rains will get you more bites than in the days prior. When it's bright, hot and sunny, you need to be fishing slower out deep on the drops. When it gets cloudy, the bass move up and get active. They won't be on the key spots, but they'll be moving around a bit more so you can run down the bank and catch a lot of fish you wouldn't have caught the days prior to the rains.
This is where I like to throw Strike King's Series 3 and Series 4S crankbaits. They're shallow runners that allow me to cover a lot of water. Secondary to those are lipless crankbaits like the Strike King Red Eye Shad and spinnerbaits like the Strike King Premier Elite. Check back next time when we'll have a brand new forecast.
