5 Tricks That Work When Lazy Bass Develop Lockjaw
Story and Photos By Don Wirth

You've been pounding the water since dawn, fishing your best spots with your favorite lures, but have yet to get a bite. Now it's late afternoon, you're hot and tired, and ready to call it quits. It's days like this that make you regret forking out those monthly payments on a bass boat.

While a weekend angler views the above scenario as a disappointment, imagine how a professional bass fisherman feels when he strikes out in a tournament. When bassin' is your livelihood, if you're not catching fish, you're not making money. Between entry fees, travel expenses and bills stacking up at home, a pro can dig himself into a hole in a hurry if he's not cashing a paycheck in every tournament he fishes.

Summer bass fishing is seldom easy. After all, these are the "dog days." But what should a dedicated angler do when the bass have a severe case of lockjaw?

While their strategies may vary, many of the top pros agree that making a change in your lures, fishing location or presentation often turns the tide in your favor. If you're on the lake this summer and can't buy a strike, heed the advice of the experts and start putting bass in your livewell.

Avoid Local Favorite Lures
"Many anglers buy into the mistaken belief that one or two specific lures are the key to catching bass on their home lake," says Tennessee pro Emily Shaffer. "Word gets around that they're hitting, say, a white spinnerbait or a green lizard. Next thing you know, everybody on the lake is throwing that lure, and before long the bass have become so accustomed to seeing it that they ignore it. It's a classic example of conditioning. Show bass the same lure over and over, and eventually they quit hitting it."

During practice for a tournament, Shaffer pays close attention to what lures local anglers are using and then makes a determined effort to fish a bait that looks completely different.

"Whenever you hear about some lure being hot on a given lake, chances are it's old news and the bass have already learned not to bite it," she explains. "Eventually, the quality bass in the lake become so accustomed to seeing the same baits, they no longer respond to them. Lay a lure on them that looks completely different and you can tap into the bigger, smarter fish that are no longer fooled by the same old presentations."

Read Bass Cues
"Bass will usually give you cues that it's time to change your presentation," notes Arkansas pro Mike Wurm. "The trick is learning to read these signals. The better you are at picking them up, the quicker you'll start getting bites."

Wurm cites an example that's probably familiar to most readers.

"Say you're fishing a 1/2-ounce chartreuse spinnerbait and feel a bass nip the blades, or see it flash on the bait but not take it," Wurm says. "That fish is telling you that there's something about your presentation it doesn't like. Usually it's the size or the bright color."

At this point, the savvy angler should immediately modify his presentation.

"Either switch to a smaller spinnerbait with a more subdued skirt color or try a totally different lure like a sinking stick worm," Wurm suggests. "When I'm fishing spinnerbaits, I always keep a box of spare skirts in different colors handy, as well as a rod prerigged with a sinking worm."

Same Lure, Different Location
Every bass fan knows that most pros fish tube baits around shallow weed cover in hot weather. While this is a proven presentation, it runs the risk of becoming overly familiar to bass. But how about a tube bait on an offshore hump? Now that's a presentation bass haven't been overexposed to. It's proven to be a moneymaker for Kentucky pro Kevin Wirth.

"On highly pressured lakes, bass become accustomed to seeing certain lures only in specific places, such as tube baits in grass," Wirth indicates. "But fish that same lure in a different area, and it becomes a totally fresh presentation, one bass aren't reluctant to bite."

For example, on offshore humps, where most anglers might fish a deep-diving crankbait or a big plastic worm in summer, Wirth will use a Texas-rigged tube bait instead.

"Cast the tube to the top of the structure, let it sink, then pop it off the bottom with a sharp stroke of the rod," he says. "This triggers a savage reaction strike. They'll usually hit it as it falls back down."

Wirth mentions another scenario where a popular lure can be fished successfully in an atypical place.

"Everybody fishes lipless vibrating crankbaits around stump flats, gravel bars and shallow coves, but you don't see many anglers throwing them into submerged grass beds," he notes. "You've got to try this in summer. It's an awesome way to trigger strikes from sluggish bass."

Wirth casts the rattling plug into a weedy area, lets it sink, then the instant he feels it contact the grass, jerks his rod back sharply while reeling at the same time.

"This rips the crankbait out of the vegetation into open water, shedding grass off the hooks and creating a sudden flash and an intense rattling sound that triggers a hellacious reaction strike," he says. "Use a stout cranking rod and a high-speed reel with braided line for this application. The braid lets you feel when the lure hits the grass and, because it has little stretch, makes the plug react quicker when you jerk your rod."

Fish Different-Colored Water
Why do bass pros make those long-distance boat runs during tournaments? Often they're looking for the right water color.

"In summer, water in a major reservoir system can be virtually the same color from one end to the other due to heavy plankton growth, a relative lack of rainfall and round-the-clock power generation at the dam," explains Tennessee pro Charlie Ingram. "This scatters bass and makes for a slow bite. If I'm not connecting with fish under these conditions, I may abandon the area I'd been fishing and go looking for water that's either clearer or muddier. This may involve a long boat ride, but it's worth it to get on a big concentration of active fish."

A veteran of both the B.A.S.S. and F.L.W. tours, Ingram has been known to run more than 100 miles each way in a tournament just to find water that was more to his liking.

"You have to play to your strengths," he advises. "My strong suit is fishing shallow, so I much prefer murky water to clear, and I'll do whatever it takes to find it. My favorite water color is where I can just barely see a spinnerbait's blades flashing when I slow-roll the lure back to the boat. I have lucked out and found dirty water in the back end of the same creek arm I'd been fishing, but I always come prepared with a full tank of gas to make that long journey if it means increasing my odds at winning."

Fish Closer To Current
"Most bass fishermen dislike current," claims legendary TV bass angler Bill Dance. "But in summer, it can be the key to an active bass bite. Current cools the water and activates baitfish. It also reduces stratification, the condition where there's very little oxygen in the water below a certain depth. Where there's a good current flow, there's an abundant supply of oxygen throughout the entire water column, which leads to a more healthy food chain and a stronger concentration of aggressive bass."

Dance's remedy for a slow summer bite is to pick up that trolling motor, crank your engine and head for the main channel, where current flow is more pronounced.

According to Dance, largemouth and smallmouth bass behave differently in current.

"Smallmouth are more likely to be directly in the path of the current flow than largemouth," he says. "Expect smallies to be holding behind current-breaking objects like big rocks and stumps on the bottom. Largemouth, on the other hand, like to get close to but not directly in current. They'll sit in slack water close to current breaks. The hotter the water, the closer to the flow they'll be."

When casting around current, Dance knows that accuracy counts more than distance.

"When the water is moving, bass will tuck in behind an object or hunker right against a bank, and their strike zone shrinks dramatically," he says. "Largemouth especially won't move more than a couple of inches to nail passing prey. I like to position my boat close to my target, such as a riprap bank, and make short, accurate pitches around every big rock, log or stump I encounter. And I expect 80 percent of my bites to come within the first or second turn of the reel handle."