Midsummer Tournament Prefishing
By Dean Capra
Midsummer in the upper Midwest
is late June to the end of July or early August.
It also means the fish are well established
in their summer patterns.
When I’m going to fish a tournament on a body of water I’ve been on in the past,
this is the approach I take.
I know that some fish will still be shallow,
less than five feet. There are a lot of very good shallow anglers that fish
these tournaments, so they put a lot of pressure on the fish. I would rather
find unpressured fish to go after or at least find fish that have seen fewer
lures. On most of the systems, I like to start at the weedline during midsummer.
I look for a weedline at the edge of a big flat that is close to deep water. The
weedline offers the fish cover, food, good oxygen content and access to deep
water. Access to deep water can be a real key to quality fish. I want to fish
fast until I locate some fish. I like to start out throwing a ½ oz. Rapala
Rattlin' Rap. I like the Firetiger color in the metro lakes and Shiner is a
great color up north. I use a high speed Shimano Curado Super Free Spool reel with a Shimano
Compre 7' medium heavy rod so I can cast a long distance . I’m just looking for aggressive fish. When I catch one or
two on a weedline I figure there should be more. That’s when I break out
the Aqua-Vu camera. You have no idea how much the
Aqua-Vu has helped me since it
came out. I used to have to spend four or five days prefishing for a tournament
and now I feel confident after one or two days that I know what the fish are
doing. I also don’t have to soremouth more fish! I can drop the
Aqua-Vu down
there and see how many and how big the fish are. I can see what the dominant
bait is. Are they feeding on sunnies or minnows? Are they swimming nose down
looking for crayfish? I can see if there are subtle changes in the weed growth
or does the bottom have a content change from sand to clay? If you have these
answers, you can figure out what bait to use and how to present it on tournament
day.
When it gets to be the end of July, and into
the month of August, many fish move off the weedline to the deeper water basin.
If you can find the right spot, you can load the boat with quality fish in the
tournament. To prefish for these deep-water bass, you need to check your map to
locate the deepest water in the main lake. Then look for the longest point that
extends out to that deep-water basin. When I’ve found this kind of a spot, I
start fishing at the weedline and go deeper. I will throw a Carolina rig that
has a ¾ oz. Thunder Bullets rattling sinker, about 24 inches of Berkley Vanish
for the leader and I always start with a pumpkinseed Berkley Powerbait Lizard on a
3/0 Gamakatsu hook. I fish the Carolina rig fairly fast, using it as a search
bait. When I catch one, I drop the
Aqua-Vu over the side again to see how many
fish are in the area and what the bottom content is. If I find rocks, I know I
hit the jackpot! I will mark the spot with my Garmin GPS so I can find it again
and move on to the next point. If I have found fish on these deep points, I
always try to find a hump in the deep water that isn’t on the map. I will drive
back and forth over the deep water looking for these unmarked humps. You’d be
surprised as to how many I’ve found this way!
If the deep-water basin is 30 to 35 feet or deeper, I look for a hump that comes
up to 18 to 22 feet on top. I will use the same Carolina rig looking for fish.
If I get just one bite I know that this is another jackpot spot that will have
unpressured, quality fish on it. I will check it with the
Aqua-Vu, mark it with
my Garmin GPS and get out of there before someone sees me on it!
If you will use these methods for looking
for fish beyond the breaks, and then adapt to the conditions of tournament day, I’m sure I’ll be seeing you on the weigh in stand
this summer!
Dean Capra
classicbass.com Pro Staff
