How was your summer bass fishing experience?

[Ryan N]

Let's shift away from politics for a second and agree that it's HOT. Hot for us anglers, and hot for the fish. I've never had such tough fishing conditions down here in Florida. At best I'd catch a couple of dinks with Ned rigs and flukes. I'm pretty sure the heat has drastically reduced the population of big bass in my area, I just couldn't get anything bigger than 2 lbs.

[gim]

Summer has been stunning here in the north. Honestly, weather wise, it’s the best one in years. We erased a drought coming out of a fake winter, re-filled all the lakes, rivers, ponds, and recharged groundwater and soils with an abundance of consistent rain since April. Only had one week in late July that was what I would call “nasty” when it was very warm and humid. Otherwise it’s generally been 75-80 degrees during the day and 55-60 at night time. Only one day with wildfire smoke. I wish more of our summers were like this. They’ve mostly been hot, humid, and drought stricken with smoke filled air in recent memory.

 

Fishing has been good. Not what I would call fantastic, but certainly better than average.

[papajoe222]

So far, mine has been uneventful. A combination of less time on the water and tough conditions when I was able to get out have been the reasons. The light at the end of the tunnel, for me, is the fact that summer isn't over and my outboard should be up and running in a couple of days.

[PaulVE64]

Maybe I'm too far north?

All that rain has left my river in flood since April. I've been reduced to pond fishing for large mouth and panfish

[Catt]

Hot, sweaty, humid, sweaty, wet, sweaty, with a few bass thrown in.

[Bazoo]

Been pretty decent bank fishing round here. I've connected with a few here and there, no hawgs, but a few 2lbers.

[scaleface]

I have been learning an unfamiliar lake, finding spots , catching fish and having fun . Just havent caught anything huge. Been in a big fish slump.

[Zcoker]

It’s been hot down here in Florida, as usual, but I’m still getting a lot of fish. Some days better than others, mostly at night. Which is game-on here in the Florida heat. Fishing at night has turned into a standard for me. Often when I fish into the day and the blinding heat, where the water seems to almost boil, I think to myself that nothing alive is going to be active but instead hiding and waiting for the sun to set. Time to eat! 

[DogBone_384]

If it weren't for the abundance of perch in my area, this Summer would have been a bust.  The bass I caught were small. 

 

I guess they went deeper than I fished. That, and I probably didn't fish slow enough.

 

 

[DaubsNU1]

10 hours ago, gimruis said:

Summer has been stunning here in the north. Honestly, weather wise, it’s the best one in years. We erased a drought coming out of a fake winter, re-filled all the lakes, rivers, ponds, and recharged groundwater and soils with an abundance of consistent rain since April. Only had one week in late July that was what I would call “nasty” when it was very warm and humid. Otherwise it’s generally been 75-80 degrees during the day and 55-60 at night time. Only one day with wildfire smoke. I wish more of our summers were like this. They’ve mostly been hot, humid, and drought stricken with smoke filled air in recent memory.

 

Fishing has been good. Not what I would call fantastic, but certainly better than average.

 

Nebraska summer has been very similar to @gimruis. Lots of rain this spring and even through the summer...I live on a few acres outside of town and don't have sprinklers....my yard has not looked this good in years!

 

Just a few weeks of really hot and sticky 90 degree days. Very fortunate.

 

Fishing has been pretty good. No complaints...just wish I could get on the water more.

 

[gim]

6 minutes ago, DaubsNU1 said:

Just a few weeks of really hot and sticky 90 degree days. Very fortunate.

 

We've only had 6 days in 2025 when it reached or crossed the 90 degree thresh hold here.  My kind of weather.

 

Last year we had 20 of them before August and finished with 33.

 

I think we will add a couple more before its over though.

[bp_fowler]

No too bad.  

 

Fishing slowed down a bit here after the last of the blue gill were done spawning. About mid July it started getting too hot to walk the bank for hours grinding for a hand full of dinks so I resorted to night fishing.  

 

Not all bad news though as I did catch a new PB.  Also, I Just returned from a trip up north where I had some success.  

This week will be cooler but next week we’ll be back into the 90s. I recent discovered that a nearby river holds smallmouth so I might pick on them for while before the fall season starts.

[Bankc]

From a fishing perspective, not very good.  The weather has been alright.  A bit hotter than average, but nothing crazy.  We've had about an average amount of rainfall.  Not enough to officially pull us out of this several year's long drought we've been in, but enough to get close. 

 

But for whatever reason, the fish have just not been biting.  And the fish that I have caught, have been smaller than usual.  Maybe it's just a natural cycle.  Maybe it's due to a change in water quality.  Maybe it's weather related.  Maybe it's years of increasing fishing pressure.  I'm going to blame FFS, but mostly just because I can't reasonably afford one.  Maybe other lakes around me are doing better, but the ones I frequent near me have just been really tough this year.  And have been since around the start of last fall. 

 

But otherwise, it's been a pretty good summer.  I mean, even a bad day of fishing is still a good day. 

[padlin]

Decent in the spring, then too many hot days and the weeds went wild shrinking considerably the amount of openish water. Had to have Carpal Tunnel surgery a month ago so that ended it for the summer, hoping to get out later this week. Can you get carpal tunnel from fishing too much?

 

Overall, the usual amount of fish but as yet nothing big, all under 3 lbs, maybe 20 a day, daybreak to 10am or so. I am getting better with a baitcaster, I can now hit the water if I aim at it.

 

Getting older and the 60 lb canoe is starting to feel like 100.

[Susky River Rat]

It was very hot. The river got low but, never got super low. The fishing wasn’t bad. Wasn’t great either. 

[BayouSlide]

Can be summed up with four words:

 

Few and far between.

[Pat Brown]

I mean - it's been really fun but reading other posts in here - I'm not trying to rub it in.  😂

 

Lotta bass caught on a frog since first week of May.  Plenty over 5 lbs.  I'd be a fool to complain about that!  A frog bass is a thing of beauty.

 

Biggest I got into during the proper hot months were a 7 lb 8 oz on a frog and a 7 even on a mag speed worm with a nice little pile of 6+ lbers - so nothing mega giant this summer but that's just fine.  Winter's coming.  😜😜😜

[Koz]

Bank fishing off my back yard has been terrible this summer. I think I have caught only 4 or 5 bass. In the spring I catch that in an hour.

 

On the other hand, kayak fishing on smaller lakes has been great. But on the big lakes it has been tougher. Still, it has been a lot better than last year.

 

I am looking forward to the cooler weather when all of the jet skis and pontoon boats pulling rafts are off the lake.

[Bankbeater]

A few nice bass with a lot of dink bass and big sunfish thrown in during June and July.

[Choporoz]

Fishing has been good.  But it has been different this summer.  There are fewer eating on the deep bottom structure all summer.  I always disliked chasing bait schools around, but that has been more reliable than in the past.  I fish shad lakes and there were always times in spring and fall when the massive bait balls were evident, but the bait stayed bunched up all summer.  Grass spraying was early this year, so that changed things up for months.

Even the bluegill are mixing it up.  Blink and you missed the June spawn.  But they are building nests today like crazy.  Full moon, maybe?  June drought sent most packing and put it off?  IDK.  Don't recall mid August bluegill spawn.

  

[Fried Lemons]

It's been ok. I can usually scrounge together a couple fish on deep structure, but the size has been lacking. One nice 5lb 10oz fish in July and a lot of 4s, almost one every trip. Even that bite has slowed down considerably. Shallows are really tough, I usually don't bother unless I exhausted every other option.

[Bird]

We've had a hot and dry summer except for the 8" of rain dumped on us from the latest storm.

Fishing has been good, better than expected here in VA.

 

[MIbassyaker]

I can't really complain about the conditions this year, just the available time. I have fished fewer hours so far this summer than any other since I started keeping track 12 years ago, except for one.  Overall average of just under 2 bass per hour; lots of small fish -- only a handful of bass over 3lb, and haven't broken 4.

[T-Billy]

My bass numbers are WAAYYY under average this summer. I'm not sure if spending 90% of my time on the water muskie fishing has anything to do with that or not, but I suspect it might. 😁

[Swamp Girl]

It's been a good summer, but really a tale of two summers. June and the first half of July produced a lot of 40 to 75-bass mornings and evenings. Then the numbers steadily dropped and now I'm averaging 15 to 25-bass mornings and evenings. Size-wise, it wasn't as good as last summer with the six-plus pounders, but I did catch a lot of four-pounders this summer, more than I cared to count. In-Fisherman says that a four-pounder in Maine is equivalent to a 6.25-pounder in the South, so if that's true, I caught a LOT of six-pounders this year! Heh. 

 

My mechanics have improved. I hook more bass and land more bass. And I'm much more confident in weeds than I was last summer or the summer of 2022. I also learned a lot about the pond where I bought property. I can take someone fishing and tell them where to cast to catch bass and that's fun, putting pals on fish.

 

I also caught my PB in the spring, but that's another season.