The Summer Smallmouth Setup
By Andrew Ragas Summer’s swelter is notorious for delivering the most difficult fishing of the season. Bites are typically less aggressive and fish are driven deep during daytime, becoming even more difficult to locate. Dog days, hot weather, warm water temperatures, heavy pleasure boat traffic and passive bites become common excuses for a poor day of fishing. Oppositely for me, these conditions deliver the best trophy smallmouth fishing of the year. During the dog days of summer, I live for catching some of the largest and heaviest smallmouth bass of the season. Almost every night between end of July through August, from dusk till hours after dark, I work a “milkshake express” run on a handful of different bass waters. This is no ordinary milk run. This run and gun approach of thoroughly, efficiently working all known high-percentage feeding locations of the lake is strategically coordinated according to the timeline of sunset, and predictability of bass movements centered on prime habitats and feeding locations. As a result, my best and most aggressive bass bites of the season happen. Nearly 5 seasons have passed since I first examined and revealed my night fis