Is 2-3 Hours Without A Bite Common In Summer?

[Chris-W]

I am trying to keep my confidence up, but my last 4 trips to my most accessible (neighborhood) lake have only produced 1 bass for me. I know there are 5lb bass in there because I've caught them before but I just can't get them to bite anything lately. I'm usually there in the middle of the day on the weekends (2-4pm) but have also fished early morning and late at night with no noticeable increase in bites. I've varied my lures (reaction baits and slow Carolina rig/weightless senko) and my presentations and I'm getting skunked most of the time. I've worked the grass lines and the deepest spots (creek channel) too. I usually only have 2-3 hours when I go fishing so is this just expected with summer bass fishing, or am I missing something? Time for a new lake or new approach?

[F14A-B]

I always, always catch my fish just before sunrise, with maybe 1 1/2 Hr. after... In the mid- summer.

Then at night....in central Fl. You had to be on the water well before daylight, and one July morn. I caught 16 Pds. Before the sun came over the Horizon, that bag was huge for July. After sunrise about a hour into the bite was over... The End..

I believe you are fishing the worst time of the day, for this time of Year..

[Bluebasser86]

Yes, very common around here. There's some lakes that, when I fished a lot of tournaments, it was well known that what you had in the livewell by 9am was probably all you'd have by the end of the day. It just gets extremely difficult when the sun gets high and it gets hot out.

[Sam]

Where did the bass go, Chris?

 

Into deep water for the oxygen and cool water?

 

Along the bank for the shade and waiting for an easy meal to pass by?

 

Holding to any structure they can find due to dirtier than usual water for your pond?

 

Resting after gouging themselves when a cold front came through the night before?

 

You have to find them.

 

And you know you have to use search baits such as crankbaits, spinnerbaits, Chatterbaits, Shad Raps, etc.

 

Or, you can try your luck at pitching and flipping.

 

May I suggest investing some of your hard earned funds into a Hummingbird Piranha MAX 230 Portable sonar unit with the wireless sonar and map the pond?

 

You may be totally surprised at what you never knew was on the bottom of that pond.

 

Keep this to yourself or others will do the same and find out what they don't know and become better bass fishermen, or at least catch more bass thinking they are better bass fishermen!

[gulfcaptain]

Are you allowed to get a boat on there?  If so you're doing a lot better then the local city park lake/ponds I fish.  2-3 hrs without a bite, yes it's normal. I can fish an 8hr day and get 3 bites catch 2 fish and the highly pressured waters I fish if you can consistantly catch 2-3 fish a day, you are in the 10% that catch 90% of the fish.  Try a different approach, fish a dropshot and a small 4" straight tail worm.  If that isn't the normal presentation on that lake you may open a whole new batch of fish.  I try and do that around here.  I've had to veer away from Senko's and wacky rigs as everyone fishes them.  But yet I can throw a 1oz punch jig and straight braid and get fish that other's are missing simply because they don't look at that option to fish.  Change up your presentation and think outside the box.  Funny how a simple minded fish can drive us crazy when we can't outsmart them.  Good luck.

[jhoffman]

Two weeks ago, tournament day. Hammered fish from sunup till 9:30, the bite then completely shut down on me and I never caught another fish till 1:30. My local lake, last time I fished it, same deal, till about 10am max then nothing.

 

They shift into the shade or back down to that first break, or heck they even suspend in open water.

[everythingthatswims]

If you go to One Fish Anna, you might not get a bite!

[EmersonFish]

Short Answer: Yes, it's common, but don't settle for it. Don't let it shake your confidence; but keep trying new approaches. You might throw everything in the book at them and find that in that body of water, mid-summer, mid-day; one bite every 2 or 3 hours is as good as you'll do. You might find the sweet spot, and have onlookers thinking you're the local KVD. Who knows? That's the beauty of it.

[rippin-lips]

I went Sunday with 3 friends in kayaks. We fished the same water and in relative close proximity to each other. With in casting distance anyhow. They were throwing the same stuff I was using. I ended the day with triple the fish then the next closest buddy who had 7. That day was just all about technique. I slowed way down and they all fished pretty fast. Sometimes you just have to work an area really slow to get bit.

[Weld's Largemouth]

its common if you've got a skunk up your butt

[Chris-W]

Where did the bass go, Chris?

 

You have to find them.

 

And you know you have to use search baits such as crankbaits, spinnerbaits, Chatterbaits, Shad Raps, etc.

 

Or, you can try your luck at pitching and flipping.

 

May I suggest investing some of your hard earned funds into a Hummingbird Piranha MAX 230 Portable sonar unit with the wireless sonar and map the pond?

 

You may be totally surprised at what you never knew was on the bottom of that pond.

 

Keep this to yourself or others will do the same and find out what they don't know and become better bass fishermen, or at least catch more bass thinking they are better bass fishermen!

  

Where did the bass go, indeed. . I've never caught a fish with the search/reaction baits you mentioned in this lake but I have tried them varying the location, presentation and time of day. I need to keep using them so I start catching and build confidence in them because I know they are the classic search baits. I thought that search/reaction baits are for aggressive bass and due to the heat and time of day, the bass are more likely to be lethargic and finesse tactics (C rig, T rig) would work better. Is this understanding wrong?

I have considered a portable fish finder but never used one. That particular model appears to be discontinued now. Do you know what the most comparable unit that they sell now is? The lake I fish is 12' at the deepest in case that matters.

Are you allowed to get a boat on there?  If so you're doing a lot better then the local city park lake/ponds I fish.  2-3 hrs without a bite, yes it's normal. I can fish an 8hr day and get 3 bites catch 2 fish and the highly pressured waters I fish if you can consistantly catch 2-3 fish a day, you are in the 10% that catch 90% of the fish.  Try a different approach, fish a dropshot and a small 4" straight tail worm.  If that isn't the normal presentation on that lake you may open a whole new batch of fish.  I try and do that around here.  I've had to veer away from Senko's and wacky rigs as everyone fishes them.  But yet I can throw a 1oz punch jig and straight braid and get fish that other's are missing simply because they don't look at that option to fish.  Change up your presentation and think outside the box.  Funny how a simple minded fish can drive us crazy when we can't outsmart them.  Good luck.

.

Yes I have access to a bass raider 10E for this lake. The deepest parts are around 12'. There are a few kids that fish the lake sometimes but I wouldn't consider it heavily fished at all. Senkos are the only thing I've had luck on but I'm trying to expand my lures and approaches to the popular search/reaction baits mentioned above.

Thanks for the encouragement! I feel better knowing that I've set myself up for more of a challenge fishing at this time of day, but with my schedule this will continue to be the easiest time for me to break away. There are a few downed trees in the lake that I feel must hold bass but I've never caught one there. Just need to keep on it, vary the approach, vary the lures, and get better at accurate casting!

[jlew]

The other day, the partner and I caught a quick 9lb bag by 7:30. We then went to noon without another bite. We had long resolved to just enjoy the pursuit, and try to fish "clean". At 12:30 we pulled into an area, and within an hour we were up to a 21lbs sack. I guess after a few years of tournament fishing, I've come to realize that I can react to a slow day in two ways:

One, I could start questiong everything, start bouncing around the lake, start speeding my presentation, and most likely still finish out the day ticked off and without a decent bag to weigh.

Or two, relax, slow down, fish to your strengths, let the environment "speak" to you, and just enjoy it for what it is... a day on the water. Then, for some reason, the fish usually end up cooperating.

[einscodek]

The fish have to eat even more in the summer so when fishermen cant catch them, its not that they arent there or arent eating.

ie.. this morning I ran into a bank fisherman both of us hadn't caught anything yet.. I had fished for bout 30 mins with no hits and noticed nothing was being hit in the shallows or edges.  He made a comment that they're deep and come back in the fall.  Moving along the bank 30 minutes later I found them buried in the mats and started pulling them out the biggest being 20".

If you'd listened to the guy, you'd have packed it in for summer.

Fact is, after Spring, summer and fall is when you need to really spend some time in locating them and figuring them out on a trip-by-trip conditions basis.. if you dont work on figuring out what is going on.. yes getting skunked in summer is a very real possibility.. but this is true in fall as well.  I think fishermen get spoiled by the easier fishing in Spring

[Catch and Grease]

I got skunked today, fished 5 hours and got 3 strikes on a frog but no hook-up, just keep fishing!

[ColdSVT]

I fished a tourny a few weeks ago and put a limit in the boat in an hour....culled a few by 9am and didnt catch i single fish after that...weighed my fish at 3pm

Another time i went from 7am to 1pm without a fish and all of a sudden i had a limit before at 230pm lol..just in time for the 3pm weighin lol

So yeah it happens lol

[Felix77]

It happens much more often in the summertime for me.  This past weekend I fished a tournament where 5 of the 8 fish I caught were before 9:30am.  The other 3 were few and far between the rest of the day.  During that day my boater and I went over 3 hours without a bite.

[DogBone_384]

I've had plenty of days where I'll go at least a couple of hours without a bite, especially if I'm fishing a new body of water where I spend much of my time paddling around investigating/mapping out the area.

 

I wouldn't sweat it, fishing is still better than a lot of things we've all got to do.

[fishva]

For me, this summer has been search, search, search. The bass are almost never where I think they will be, or should be.

 

Did you see that Seinfeld episode where George finds that he makes great decisions by doing whatever the opposite of his instincts are? That's been this summer for me. Going to where they *shouldn't* be has paid of more than going to where they *should* be.

 

And sometimes, it's just about being lucky and having a line in the water at the right time. A couple weeks ago, I went 3 hours without a bite. Then I caught 3 fish in about 10 minutes, and then nothing else for 2 hours after that. What happened in those 10 minutes to change their mood? I have no idea. But if I'd been moving from one spot to another rather than fishing, I would have been skunked for the day.

[Chris-W]

Well thanks SO much for the encouragement everyone.  I had been getting pretty discouraged out there, so glad to know it's definitely expected at times in the summer.  Not going to keep me off the water though