August Fishing

[HawkI]

August seems to be the toughest month of fishing each year for me. I’ve tracked my catches for the past 3 years and the trend is by the time I get to August in Iowa I can’t seem to catch anything. I’m a bank fisherman and will slay them all the way through July but every year when August rolls around I can’t find them. I primarily fish lakes/ ponds. Any advice?

[PhishLI]

6 hours ago, HawkI said:

Any advice?

Paint your house.?

[GreenPig]

Go for the night bite. It's cooler too.

[Zcoker]

I second the night bite. When something doesn't work, gotta try something else, a different tactic or approach. I can tell ya one thing, down here in south Florida, talk about hot water temps in August! Like boiling. Night fishing is much cooler, the water cools a bit, and the big ones prowl around to feed. Seems like most hits at night are always the bigger fish. 

[Basser2021]

17 hours ago, HawkI said:

August seems to be the toughest month of fishing each year for me. 

Same here

 

9 hours ago, GreenPig said:

Go for the night bite. It's cooler too.

I will definetley have to try this.

[JustJames]

Cleaning your reels, that what I do every summer. I can catch fish year round though but over 100 degrees SoCal heat is unbearable. If I fish I choose late evening through night if your lake around. 
Another option is to go light or ultra light and target those smaller aggressively bass. I normally see those 1-2lb wolf pack roaming around shallow in the morning for bluegill this time of year

[Bankbeater]

Night fishing is not an option for me.  I've been pitching into coontail and lilypads.  I'm not catching a ton, but I'm not getting skunked either. 

[TnRiver46]

The fish don’t know that it is august, their calendar got all wet years ago……..

 

It’s probably more a lack of confidence 

[gim]

Ironically, August has proven to be a much more productive month of fishing for me recently. June and July…not great. The jury is still out on the rest of this month, but the fishing has noticeably improved here the past couple weeks.

 

Last year I slayed them in August. It was better than the rest of the season combined. And I believe it’s primarily because of the weather. Frequent weather changes with regular incoming low pressure is the difference. June and July has lacked that. Too hot and dry with constant high pressure.

[HawkI]

1 hour ago, TnRiver46 said:

The fish don’t know that it is august, their calendar got all wet years ago……..

 

It’s probably more a lack of confidence 

Not lacking any confidence, been fishing my whole life. The stats I keep tell the whole story. August rolls around and it’s by far the slowest month of the year for me. 

[TnRiver46]

6 minutes ago, HawkI said:

Not lacking any confidence, been fishing my whole life. The stats I keep tell the whole story. August rolls around and it’s by far the slowest month of the year for me. 

If you could somehow completely forget history, I wonder if things would change. When you set out fishing thinking this is August and it will suck, it probably will

[DitchPanda]

I'm also from Iowa and I to bank fish. For me the antidote has always been to fish early...like 530-8am. Not uncommon to catch 6 or 8 in a few hours then it tapers off for me.

[AlabamaSpothunter]

51 minutes ago, TnRiver46 said:

If you could somehow completely forget history, I wonder if things would change. When you set out fishing thinking this is August and it will suck, it probably will

I've said as much in my few replies already on this forum, but the only thing I know for sure about Bass is that it requires confidence to catch them above anything else.  The more confident you are, the more fish you catch...you could honestly graph that over my fishing lifetime  

[Blue Raider Bob]

On 8/20/2022 at 9:55 AM, Dwight Hottle said:

 

That looks a little bigger than 1-2lbs

I got to agree...that's the biggest 1-2 lb bass ever!

Dwight your scale is way light! Use mine.....it shows everything 5 plus!

Just now, Blue Raider Bob said:

I got to agree...that's the biggest 1-2 lb bass ever!

Dwight your scale is way light! Use mine.....it shows everything 5 plus!

Meant SoCal but regardless, i'll take those 1-2 lb anyday! 

[The Baron]

We've really been struggling with slow days in August.  Mostly littles and few of those even.  A handful of decent ones, but they've been on-of's and only one per day at best.  I even got skunked at one of our best little lakes last time out.   We were hot and humid, but in a drought for most of July and into August, but the weather has been very unsettled and some intense storms the last week or so.  Cooler nights now, so hopefully the fishing pickup as the weather straightens out.  I would fish before the fronts, but I've only got a canoe and wind makes my fishing life miserable plus I can't run from the nasty walls of rain when I see them coming.

[GRiver]

It’s not just tough fishing in August,

it’s tough on fisherman too.

Here the heat and humidity will start to melt ya just after 7:00am.