Onboard and Offshore
By Andrew Ragas During summer’s dog days, some anglers give up on smallmouth bass. Others, meanwhile, are too stubborn to change their fishing ways. “I’m a shallow water guy,” boasted the angler launching his $80k rig before me one morning last August. “If I can’t catch them beating the bank, I’m probably not going to catch them,” he added. “I just can’t make myself to fish offshore,” he concluded. One of the biggest mistakes bass anglers make is their reliance and dependence on fishing shorelines, docks, and near-shore habitats. Usually in summer, this breaks a trip. Don’t be a bank beater like that guy. Don’t settle for nurseries of little fish, and the most pressured fish. Old habits are hard to break. Most angling pressure bass receive from lake fishermen is near shorelines. Look over the shoulder, and you will learn the best smallmouth fishing in the entire lake is out towards that direction where you’ll rarely ever see other bass boats fishing. As the shallows and near-shore areas of lakes get fished the hardest, the trophy summer smallmouth I focus on catching the most are the least pressured specimens of the lake. By now in the