Pro Tips to Find Big Bass Deep & Shallow in Late Summer

On this episode of the Serious Angler Bass Fishing Podcast, pro bass angler Bob Downey breaks down the exact decision making process he uses before he ever makes his first cast of the day. We dig into how he decides whether to start shallow or deep, and how he decides between throwing a moving bait to cover water or slowing down with a finesse presentation on the bottom.

Bob walks through the real factors that go into these calls: water temperature, seasonal patterns, water clarity, forage location, fishing pressure, and current conditions. We also get into what happens when those two decisions conflict, like when everything points shallow but everything also points slow, and how he adjusts on the fly once his starting game plan doesn't produce.

📌 Important Links:
Bob's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bobdowney_/

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Neko: Rapala Janitor (https://omnia.direct/aertn)
Heavy Jig: Strike King Hack Attack Jig (https://omnia.direct/arth)
Crankbait: Rapala DT (https://omnia.direct/eatj)

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

All right, welcome to Sirius Angler Podcast, everyone. I'm your host, Bailey Eichbrett. And as always, here at Sirius Angler, our main course for you will be talking and hopefully teaching you more about bass fishing. Today we have an awesome episode. Uh, but I'm rocking this one solo. Uh, Deacon is actually currently uh on his way home from Mexico. Deacon fled uh Orlando at iCast last week with me uh and went with his lady friend to Old Mexico for a few days. And I don't blame him. Uh it's not like they have a fun trip. So Deacon will be back on next week's episode. So sorry guys, there was no seriously Western show this past Monday, um, but we do have an awesome show today with Mr. Bob Downey. Got to see Bob last week at iCast, and I was like, hey, let's rip a show next week. Uh let's talk some summer bass fishing. We're gonna be talking specifically on should you start deep, should you start shallow, what windows dictate on should you uh start shallow over deep? Um, and then really kind of creating a hierarchy of strategy for whether you're turret fishing or not, on how to approach finding fish offshore in the summer and finding fish shallow in the summer, and what specific, unique things you should look for to find bigger than average fish in the summertime, and then obviously the baits and uh and presentations that go along with that. So we break all that stuff down, have a great conversation. I love getting time uh to hang out with Bob. Uh he's a great dude from the Midwest, obviously uh an Elite Series pro who's found a lot of success. And he lives in some fisheries that are very diverse. Obviously, Minnesota, there's so many dang fisheries in that that state alone, but um dealing with a lot of vegetation, different fisheries that have their own personality from place to have wood offshore, grass offshore, nothing offshore, super clear. Uh, he's seen a lot of it, experienced a lot of it. So he's gonna have some great advice for you guys to go catch more fish in the summertime. But before we get into the show with Bob, a few things for you guys. Digging out of iCast, the the best of show winner, anyway, was the new Rhino rods from Rather Outdoors and uh an interesting approach. We talked about that with Andrew Hayes on the iCast breakdown show that we did last week. You guys can go check that out. Uh congrats to them for winning best of show there. I don't know if they're doing the Anglers Choice again this year, I haven't heard anything about it. Um, but uh either way, uh some cool stuff to come out of iCast. Looking forward to trying to get our hands on some. I'm sure there'll be an Omni of fishing here soon, but some more buzz around the industry. And as always, our business from the bass boat segment is brought to you by our friends over at Rec Lending. If you guys are looking to get into a bass boat or currently own a bass boat, uh one of the coolest things, we had a gentleman come up to us uh at iCast, uh Deacon and I, and just mentioned how he loved the show and uh mentioned that he did his uh his financing through rec lending and how they were able to get him a smoking deal when he refinanced through them. So that is awesome. Love hearing that customer testimonial on somebody that listened to the show, went to rec lending, and uh was able to save some dollars and make owning a boat much easier. And uh appreciate that gentleman for doing so. It was great to meet them. And um guys, moves with the bass boat for today. Obviously, the rhino spinning uh combo won best of show at iCast, but we have some pretty interesting things coming out on the conservation side as well as on the tournament side, and that being said, obviously, we're not gonna go dig into all the iCast stuff because iCast awards they're cool, but they're interesting to say the least. It's kind of more of a horse and pony show. But either way, go check out all of the iCast coverage. I'm sure there is loads and loads and loads and loads of it. We kept it brief for you guys. Go listen to Andrew Hayes' uh Tackle Talk podcast. He literally dropped a three-hour-long deep dive on iCast. If there's anything you want to know about iCast, go listen to that episode on Tackle Talk. He will be able to tell you everything. And it's through a good source, it's honest. Um one of the things that we saw, Major League Fishing is now using Starlink across its events, which I find very intriguing. Um the goal for there is to have more dependable score tracker updates, better live streaming and data transmission on remote fisheries. So, what this does, guys, is what I'm thinking the angle is here is one, it's cool because it's Starlink. Two, it's gonna allow them to go onto these fisheries that uh have zero cell service whatsoever. And it's gonna allow them to go and live stream. And what that does is open up to new locations that we've never seen tournament circuits go before, and places or uh trails like the BPT can go because they only have 50 or so anglers. So you don't need giant lakes to go host a 50-boat derb. So having Starlink on each boat, that's gonna be pretty interesting. Uh, looking forward to see how the success works with that. Um, and obviously be Houston, they have over 150 live events, as well as I don't know if you guys saw Bassmasters came out with their lake rankings. Uh Clear Lake in California is numero uno for 2026. So I'm curious what you guys think. There's I mean, I I love the comments I see on Bassmaster's top 100 sometimes where people are like, Oh, you of course you left out this lake, and like, hey, if your lake's that good, you probably should stop talking about it. Because if there's one thing in this list does it blows up fisheries. So if you like your lake fishing as good as it is, quiet down. I know we all have some pride in our fisheries, but keep your pride to yourself. If you if you like how good your fishery is, the more you talk about it, the more you share about it, the more it's gonna get fished. The more it gets fished, the harder it gets. It's kind of this cycle. But either way, let me know what you think. Does Clear Lake deserve to be the number one fishery in the country for 2026? Lastly, we have a couple conservation deals here. Uh Lake Champlain is preparing for a potential round goby invasion. So meaning the gobies that are in uh St. Lawrence, Ontario are likely finding their way to Champlain. Which, when you think about it, probably not the greatest thing. Because I don't think there was a prevalent nomadic smallmouth bite on St. Lawrence and Ontario because of the current. Whereas Champlain, there is a very, very heavy nomadic smallmouth bite where they get out in those basins and just roam. Obies get in there, that's probably all gonna change. That'll make things very interesting. So I hopefully that doesn't happen. Love Champlain as it is. Um, as well as we look here, uh NOAA, uh N O A A, NOAA the organization, was awarded $4.2 million for threatened and endangered species recovery. So that awards support 19 state and tribal projects. The work will include re uh include research, monitoring, and direct recovery efforts for imperiled marine and migratory species. So a win for conservation, a win for mother nature. Uh the last thing we will have here for you guys for business uh excuse me, you can't talk, business from the bass boat is uh some bass clubs are receiving funding for hands-on habitat projects. So another win for conservation. AFCO committed $25,000 across seven bass nation conservation projects. So um, including fish habitat enhancement, bass care uh equipment, shoreline work. Um, and now since 2018, AFCO has donated over $177,000. So we don't do anything with AFCO, but I do applaud businesses and companies, brands that are out in the outdoors, whether fishing, hunting, so on and so forth, that are putting their own dollars back into Mother Nature. We take from Mother Nature, so we need to be able to give it to Mother Nature, uh, return the favor, if you will. So um cool to see all that. A little bit longer of a business from the basket boat segment for you guys because there's a lot to talk about. That being said, the last thing I will leave you with is make sure you go over to Omni A Fishing, check out the new arrivals. There's a bunch of new stuff coming already. The bigger Amoeba uh is is hit Omniafishing, the new Evo swim jig. Uh, a lot of these iCast releases that you saw come out are now arriving at Omniafishing. You can use code series 10, save 10% off. Uh, and lastly, I know I mentioned this was the Omni Fishing was going to be the last point. So I apologize. I'm just trying to rake through these things if we can get to Mr. Bob Downey. But my fishing guides, I'm talking to you. If you guys are serious about making fishing guiding your business, your work, your career, get on the Blood Knot app. All the new updates are completely finished and has been flawless for everybody that we've talked to. It is free for you to use and it is a one-stop shop, a center hub to run your entire guide business, making life a lot easier, less overwhelming, and allowing you to go fishing more while booking trips while you're out on the water. So check that out, folks. I promise I'm done. Without further ado, Mr. Bob Downey. Mr. Bob Downey, dude, it is good to get you back on the show. And man, it was good to see you down an iCast.

SPEAKER_00 9:24

Yeah, yeah, you as well. I know we uh shared quite a few of the same partners, so uh it's good to see you and um you know kind of work alongside you now, too.

SPEAKER_01 9:35

Yeah, uh obviously was a iCast of urchins, iCast of Fuzz, that's for sure. Yeah, um, dude, so you mentioned we have similar partners with Rapla and uh so on and so forth. The first time I actually got to see somewhat of a glimpse of the CEO, because I don't even have my hands on it yet. Okay, was on your socials, and I I could you if you could see me, I was zooming in on your Instagram post trying to get a better look of that the CEO when he did a little teaser before iCast.

SPEAKER_00 10:07

Yeah, that was kind of the the idea, I guess, behind that post was to just get some interest going with it because I knew it'd be coming out uh the next week, but yeah, I've had it for maybe a month, so I really haven't had it that long either. And uh just was able to get out on the water with the guy that I shoot some photo and video content with, and we got some got some content around it, but yeah, it's cool, cool bait. Um, have it in two different sizes to start out, and uh yeah, I think it's a little unique compared to what else is out there, but obviously it's kind of in that urchin category.

SPEAKER_01 10:46

Yeah, it's self-weighting for people that are curious about it if they haven't you know seen all the buzz. I'm sure I'm sure there's two categories of people that probably looked at iCast and ignored everything that was an urchin because they're probably sick of it at this point, and then there's people that are like, give me all the urchins, right? Uh, but it's cool because it has like I think it they said it's glass powder in it, so that's allows it to be tough waiting.

SPEAKER_00 11:09

Yeah, so it's kind of unique because it is still TPE material, which is a floating material, right? So they had to find a way to uh I I guess the whole idea was to make it a little bit more easy and simple for the everyday fisherman to pick up, put your hook in it and fish. And if it's just straight TPE, uh then you got to mess around with nail weights or little drop shot weights. And so the idea with the glass powder in the core of it is to make it weighted right out of the package. Um, so if you want to add some more weight to it to get it down faster, you can certainly do that. Um, but the general idea is to take it out of the package, put your preferred hook in it, and go fish.

SPEAKER_01 11:56

Heck yeah. Are you throwing the the bigger one on casting or spinning still?

SPEAKER_00 12:01

You know, I threw it on casting to start, um, but I've started throwing it on spinning a little more lately, just a little beefier spinning rod, like um in that medium, medium heavy range. And uh it skips so well because it is a little bit weighted, and you can just skip those baits a lot easier around docks with a spinning rod, in my opinion. You know, you get the big like 25 millimeter size with a little weight to it, and you can skip that around docks on a bait casting setup, but that 21 millimeter um in the CEO is pretty close to like a 17 millimeter uh koiky, and I prefer to throw that on a spinning setup. Um, I'm still kind of working out the tweaks with it. I think initially I was throwing too soft of a rod, so I've bumped up my rod a little bit and bumped up my leader size. And the nice thing with that CEO is it kind of has a perfect fall rate for fishing around docks, so um, you know, put your preferred hook in it, whether it's a treble hook or a single or a frog hook, and you can skip it around docks, and it it falls just about perfect. Um, similar to like a wacky rig, you know. Um, it kind of has that slow sink to it.

SPEAKER_01 13:27

Heck yeah. I think uh Luke and Kobe might be getting annoyed with me at this point because it's like every day I'm texting Sue uh about that CEO. So how about that CEO? Just trying to get my hands on one.

SPEAKER_00 13:39

Yeah, yeah, and the 15 millimeter is gonna be a good smallmouth one. I can't say I have it yet, but I can just tell from looking at it at iCast that it's gonna be a good one for smallies.

SPEAKER_01 13:51

Yeah, I'm I'm excited to see because I feel like I didn't mean to totally turn this into a big urchin conversation here, but it's kind of hard to not hit the elephant in the room. Uh, but I feel like a lot of the smaller style urchin baits aren't being talked about as much as obviously like the full cast style, like the 24, 25, and so on and so forth as much, but I feel like the small ones work just as well. And they're yeah, and I can tell by the smile, I think I'm getting into an area I probably should shut up soon.

SPEAKER_00 14:28

Yeah, maybe. I mean, I'm sure it'll come out here. We're all going north on the national tours here in a couple weeks, and but yes, there is uh something to be said with those smaller ones, and I think if you look online, they're just as hard to get right now as some of those full casts for the guys that kind of have played with them in the last year or two, but yes, the small ones are very effective for smallmouth as well, and I'm okay saying that because they're kind of hard to get. Um, I know some of the like knockoff ones are a little easier to get right now, but yes, you get into that um like eight, nine, ten millimeter size, and those um they're a little tricky to rig, like you gotta kind of mess around with them a little bit to figure out the way right way to rig them, but yeah, they're really effective too.

SPEAKER_01 15:29

Yeah, I was gonna say, I don't think you're doing the same old Nico style on the full like like you're doing on the full cast with those teeny tiny ones.

SPEAKER_00 15:36

Yeah, it's hard because the like that center core, you can you know, you can get a nail weight in there, but it's like the tiniest one, and the bait itself doesn't have a lot of weight to it already, so you can even you can hardly cast it with even just a small nail weight, so you kind of need to go like drop shot or leaderless drop shot. Um, you can kind of let your mind run wild there on how how that might work, but um, that's kind of how I've been messing around with them.

SPEAKER_01 16:05

Heck yeah, yeah, it it kind of opened my eyes with that. Um, you guys have gone to Santi Cooper. All right, so we can talk about Santi Cooper now. Yeah, uh trying to ban like having guests from three different trails, dude, and trying to remember who's going where.

SPEAKER_00 16:21

Like yeah, I get it, I totally get it.

SPEAKER_01 16:25

Yeah, not trying to get everybody in trouble. Um everyone's throwing the full cast, and a buddy of mine from up north, all he had was 17s, and he was not like purposeful in trying to throw the 17s, he's just like, I only have one full cast, I'm gonna save it for the tournament. And he caught like two eight pounders on the 17 on Santa, and it was like, okay, maybe I don't need the full cast to catch him on this thing because it's like, and then it kind of opened your eyes too. And you know, somebody's in Texas are using 17, and it's like yeah, maybe we don't need the full cast, you know, maybe it's just that's how yeah, that 17 works pretty good too.

SPEAKER_00 17:02

The 17 surprisingly has a pretty big profile, like the you know, the core of it is smaller than the full cast, but the actual profile of the bait is still pretty good size. Um, I threw that on Murray this year um around Fry Garters and caught some of my key fish on that. And then when I was fishing Roman fish, I threw like the Koiky fish, which is kind of the large version, which is similar to the full cast a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 17:30

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SPEAKER_00 18:13

It is, and Murray, the Murray Fry Garters were actually the really hard to get to bite outside of yeah, like a couple years ago when we were there, I'd say you'd get probably 80 to 90 percent of them to bite, but I could tell a lot more guys must be doing it because I bet I got one out of every eight to ten that I threw at. Um yeah, it was yeah, like I don't think your northern fish are pressured on those fry garters yet, but the southern fish, especially on Murray, um they're like way harder to get to bite. You can get them to bite, but not every one of them.

SPEAKER_01 18:53

It's kind of what kind of exposed that when you guys were there a few years ago.

SPEAKER_00 18:58

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that kind of keyed in, I think, a lot of the local community guys, and yeah, everybody's must be doing it now because they're really hard to get to bite.

SPEAKER_01 19:08

Yeah, that is the other side of the sword of Bass Live. Yeah, you show something cool once, it's not gonna be cool ever again, right?

SPEAKER_00 19:18

Right. So you gotta make your money while you can. Yeah, if you're gonna expose it.

SPEAKER_01 19:24

Well, dude, I didn't mean to go down a total urchin rabbit hole, so apologies for everybody, but it was still fun. I enjoy the heck out of talking about that. But um, dude, I want to talk a little bit about summer bassin' um because obviously you live in an awesome part of the country where they're gonna be deep, they're gonna be shallow, they're gonna be all over the place. Um, obviously, so many of the different fisheries up there all seem to be different too in their own unique way. Yeah. Um, but lately we've been talking with a few folks on summer bass fishing and things like that, and obviously, certain parts of the country act differently. Of you hear people saying you gotta get dirt shallow in the summer, you know, for those resident fish. And there's people like, oh, you gotta get way offshore in the summer. Uh, and I kind of wanted to break that down with you how do you determine if you should start shallow, start deep? Like, how do you break that down in regards to when you look at a lake and you look at a weather condition, should I be focusing deep throughout the day, or should I go look for these resident fish up in the dirt in the summertime?

SPEAKER_00 20:26

Yeah, it's a great question. Um, I think if we're talking about our natural lakes here in the Midwest or even out in New York, out east, um you know, it seems like there's always a population in both places, shallow and deep. Um, you know, from a tournament aspect, a lot of times what I find is you can certainly find schools of fish out deep. Um, but it seems like your kicker fish come shallow. Like if you know you might have a strategy where you start out deep offshore and find maybe in a perfect world, you might find four, five, six schools of fish that you can rotate through. And then once you get a good base limit, maybe you go run shallow the rest of the day. Um, or if it's just a one-day tournament and it's kind of like you know, winner take all, one day deal. Maybe you commit all your time shallow if that's where you're getting your bigger bites, but you just kind of got to feel it out. Every lake is so different. Like we have a lot of lakes that are super clear, and maybe your bigger fish do live offshore, and then you get uh several lakes that get those algae blooms um in the middle of the summertime, and it seems like you get some of the weeds die off by that midsummer, and the offshore grass just isn't as good. And maybe those bigger fish like to be upshallow. Um, so you kind of got to you know, look at water clarity, look at the vegetation growth. Every year seems to be different. Some years it's better than others. If you have a year where vegetation growth just isn't that great, you might have a tendency to find fish shallow or better fish shallow if the vegetation's really good offshore. Um, maybe you find like a really good sized group of fish in that mid-range too, you know, if it's milf oil or um flipping, you know, clumps of cabbage in eight to ten feet. Um, so you really have to bounce around and just let the fish kind of do the talking and and adjust from there.

SPEAKER_01 22:30

Yeah, and and with that, I like that you bring up the algae bloom thing because that's a prevalent thing for us too. And I mean, especially for we have a pretty big audience from out west. And like I don't know if you've seen any of the images of Clear Lake lately, but whole.

SPEAKER_00 22:44

Yeah, I saw one video.

SPEAKER_01 22:45

It's gross.

SPEAKER_00 22:47

Yeah, yeah, kind of wild.

SPEAKER_01 22:49

Yeah, what a what kind of adjustments do you make if for the folks that are listening that you know they get those crazy algae blooms and they're going to the lake and they only have a Saturday to fish every week? You know, what kind of adjustment would you make when you pull up for the boat ramp and it's toxic sludge?

SPEAKER_00 23:06

Yeah, so I kind of would do one of two things. So you kind of have your easy route to just get on the bank and go fish any visible cover, whether it's docks or pencil reeds or tulies, maybe lily pads. Um, maybe you do have little clumps of grass up there too that you can visually see. On the opposite end of that, if the lake has some good gravel and rock areas in that, you know, maybe six to fifteen foot range, eight to fifteen foot range, they can really gang up on those areas too in that mid to late summer period. It seems like up where I live, that bite really gets best about kind of now through middle of September, like because we're far enough north that there's a bit of a transition going on most of June and the early part of July from the spawn. So they're kind of just all spread out. You might find a shallow hard spot where they're ganged up on, but those like mid-range to deeper stuff, that gravel rock stuff, um, crankbait like a DT16 is a great one to have ready to go, and then you can drag, you know, a C rig or football jig um on those areas too. You know, you can even throw big minnows or the koike at them too. Um, but uh crankbait is probably my go-to to start because you can be really efficient with it, and um it kind of helps you find those groups, and then once you do find them, you can slow down and try other stuff. But those would be the two things. It's like usually when you get those heavy algae blooms, you don't have the best weed growth offshore when that happens, it tends to kill some of the deeper weeds, and the best stuff is usually right up on the bank, or if you can find a good hard spot offshore.

SPEAKER_01 25:00

Yeah, I don't know if you can tell from this video, but my once you start talking about deep cranking, um, my eye started twitching thinking about uh I remember specifically a when I was two summers ago? I think it was two summers ago, I went up to Minnesota, I went up to Gull, and I just remember specifically graphing a beautiful bluegill bed in 14 foot of water off a deep edge of grass. And for the next hour and a half with a DT16, and now you you bring that up now, my eyes like twitching, like it's so fun. Oh, it's the best, dude. It's it's the greatest bite. Um when it comes to so you you mentioned strategy, and I I love this this conversation because uh if you think you're getting all your better bites shallow, you know, if it's a one-day tournament, put all your your chips into that ring and go for that. Uh, but for somebody that's going out just fun fishing and they just want to get bites, and you want to talk about windows, is it better to start shallow or is it better to wait until the shade lines get a little bit more tighter to the bank and start deep? How would you for somebody that just wants to go catch bites and hopefully look into a big one?

SPEAKER_00 26:13

Yeah, um that's probably your best option from a rotation standpoint is maybe start out and then move shallow as the day moves on. You know, they definitely seem to relate to those shade lines more as the day moves on. Um, it can be that way offshore too, though. Like it's really hard to say, it's kind of just a feel it out thing because sometimes in the mornings, you know, they're kind of spread out and like floating around those areas, and then as the sun comes up and the day moves on, they can suck into those hard spots too. So, you know, it's kind of a feel thing, you know, if you've got a lake that has um, you know, some sparse targets and vegetation around the areas that might create shade lines later in the day, you know, they might just be loosely related to those areas, and you can get away with like a buzzbait or a swim jig or chatterbait. Um, if you're looking to just go have fun, you know, topwater is always super fun in the mornings up shallow, and you're not necessarily targeting those shade lines necessarily, but just go down the bank, fish anything on the bank that looks good from a target standpoint. Um, and you can usually get some bites, just because obviously there's usually always a window in the morning or the evening with that stuff in the summertime.

SPEAKER_01 27:35

Yeah, and that was one of the things that I was taught growing up is you always and I've kind of adjusted from there, but like you start fast, start moving baits, and then slow down as the day goes on. Do you believe in that or do you have a different process?

SPEAKER_00 27:54

No, I think that's generally true. Um, like if I were to go out right now, are you talking largemouth or smallmouth, I guess, or doesn't it really matter?

SPEAKER_01 28:08

We we would talk more largemouth.

SPEAKER_00 28:09

I think that that yeah, I would say like if I were to go out right now for largemouth and I was gonna be up early and at the ramp at 5, 5:30, um, I'd probably have a swim jig, maybe like a buzzfrog, like a flapping frog ready to go. And because sometimes on these lakes with vegetation, it's just hard to throw that buzzbait around effectively. Um, but I'd have a buzzbait ready to go too. And then one thing that's kind of cool, if you find yourself on a clear body of water with good vegetation growth, like a little popper or a walking bait of sorts, not like right on the bank, but just where that weed edge starts to taper off, can be a really fun bite too. That is overlooked because you know, those fish on the grass edges that might be down 10 to 14 feet, you know, in the mornings, low light, like they're still in those areas, but they're kind of floating around higher and they're more willing to move. Um, you know, you see those bluegill pods oftentimes, you see them right below the surface. So that's kind of what you're imitating. And it's a really fun bite, just a little popper or a walking bait right over the tops of the weeds where it starts to taper off into that deeper water can be really effective mid-summer. Um, because those fish are out there and they're just a little bit more willing to move in that low light period. Yeah, that popper bite. I haven't experienced that in a while. Yeah, even kind of like an old school thing, but it works.

SPEAKER_01 29:40

Yeah, absolutely. Um it's it's you mentioned that a great point when the in the summertime because you get more pleasure boaters out there that are churning up grass where sometimes the buzz bait can be tough to throw because there's all this floating grass now, uh, for people churning things up. Um, so yeah, I I think that's a great way to to break that down. Um what do you think about flipping in the morning, or do you wait to a certain time of the day to go flip grass?

SPEAKER_00 30:10

I think it works if you have if you have found an area maybe previously or that has fish in it, they'll they'll bite like you can catch them on docks first thing in the morning at times. Um, it's not like my preferred thing to go do right away, but if you've got a good dock that has good deep water access next to it, um you know they'll they'll be around it in terms of like flipping submerged vegetation. Like let's say you're going down a grassland with milfoil and four to eight feet of water. Usually you can catch them in the morning too, doing that if you have the right conditions, meaning like flat, calm and maybe some sun right away. I think they'll live they'll live in that. If you get kind of windy conditions in the morning, it wouldn't be my first preference. I'd probably choose more like a chatterbait or or a swim jig in that area. But if you have flat, calm conditions, um, flipping can be really effective even right away in the morning. It's like I said, it wouldn't be my first choice necessarily, but it it can still be effective if you've got a group located.

SPEAKER_01 31:28

Yeah, I feel like the wind early morning. I feel like I almost gravitate more offshore because you I you mentioned earlier how sometimes the offshore bite in the low light hours they can kind of be floating around. I feel like I found in some scenarios the wind kind of helps group them back up, depending on what kind of cover you're fishing, like if it's a point in the grass or whatever. Um do you do you feel the same way, or do you think that it's they'll still just float around with when it's windy in the low light?

SPEAKER_00 31:59

Yeah, no, I think it can put them down in that grass more. Um it's hard, it's hard. If we're talking like northern largemouth, like natural lake largemouth, I would say it it can definitely position them maybe more on the edge, like you're talking about. What I've found is any schools of fish that are actually up in the grass with wind, it just seems to really affect that bite. You're you know, the weeds are laying over more, it's harder to get your bait down in there. Um, it seems like they might gravitate more out to the edge when you have that scenario, um, versus kind of sucking right down into the roots and the stems of those weeds when it's flat, calm, and sunny. Um, so the wind can certainly maybe bunch them up a little bit compared to maybe a flat calm overcast morning, for example.

SPEAKER_01 32:59

So kind of similar to like flooded bushes when it's super windy and waves rocking into it, they're obviously not going to be in that that bush.

SPEAKER_00 33:07

Yeah, yeah, there's like a happy medium there that like I don't mind a little wind in those scenarios, but yeah, you get too much wind and it can just mess everything up. I've seen it with smallmouth too, where maybe you've found them shallow one day and then the next day the wind's ripping in there. Usually those fish don't go far, it's not like they swim like two miles away, but they'll adjust their positioning in those areas. Uh, like you said, they might move out toward the edge more or just a little bit deeper compared to where they were when it was flat calm.

SPEAKER_01 33:42

Hmm. Okay. Um let's talk shallow for a second in this in the summertime. Uh whether you're looking for docks or it's cover that's shallow. Do you want something that's more of a steeper um topographic, like the like a decline, or do you want more gradual? What kind of topo are you looking for in the summer when you want to fish shallow?

SPEAKER_00 34:06

I would say if we're talking um docks or wood or shallow grass, my first starting point is to zoom out on my lake master map and find anywhere where deeper water swings in closer to that area. That's kind of my number one starting point is you know, if you're gonna go down what looks like a monotonous stretch, or not monotonous, but um similar similar stretch of docks. Like let's say you just have a bowl, you know, the lake is a big circle. In fact, I was just on one this last week. Um and everything looks the same to the visual eye. A lot of times I'll zoom out, and usually there's like a big flat out in front of a stretch, and then all of a sudden you'll see a you know, a contour swing in close to the bank, or that contour swings in close to the bank is usually my starting point. Now you you can't get locked into that either, though, because sometimes that's not the deal. Sometimes you'll find a huge sand flat where there's no deep water nearby, and there's no grass on the sand flat, and the only thing they can get on is docks, and they'll be on those ones too. So you kind of have to keep an open mind with that. But I would say more often than not, wherever you have deep water swinging toward the bank somewhere, is usually going to be your better shallow stretches. You're still fishing shallow, but those fish can move from shallow cover to deep water a lot easier than you know a big expansive shallow flat. So generally that's where I start, but you got to keep an open mind with it.

SPEAKER_01 35:54

I like that. Now let's flip it. And what are you looking for when it comes to fishing offshore deeper water in the summer?

SPEAKER_00 36:04

So it's almost the opposite. When I zoom out on a map, I like to see a huge expansive flat, and then some sort of change in contour that dumps into the deep basin, whether it's like a big point or a series of points, or maybe you've got a couple points and a nice inside turn, um, those are the areas that I like to look for first. Um little oddball ones are like kind of back to this shallow deal, but if you got a contour that swings like literally, literally almost touches the bank and it's like steep drop, for whatever reason, those seem to hold some fish too. So it's almost like complete opposite of the big flat and the point and dropping into the basin. If you get a contour that swings in and literally touches the bank and it's 20 foot of water where your boat is while you're actually almost casting and hitting the bank, sometimes those really steep drops can be productive too, but usually they seem to have like a good fish or two, maybe three on them. Where I'm finding most of my schools of fish are usually you got a nice big expansive flat. Maybe it's out from a spawning pocket from the springtime, and those fish are living out on that drop or that point. Maybe there's a little, you know, and then it to take it even further, like okay, we get we kind of identified that area. Then you can use your side imaging and scan for a gravel spot or a big boulder that might be in that area that's maybe not right on the point necessarily, but it's maybe off to the side or something like that. So we found our flat, kind of the deep drop into the basin on the point. But then let's scan around and see, you know, is there another feature that might actually hold a group of fish?

SPEAKER_01 37:57

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SPEAKER_00 39:07

Very much so, yeah. So if you are fortunate enough to get out early in that April, May time period before the grass is really up and you find a hard spot, like Bailey said, in that mid-range time period, like that can be really, really key because you might have a nice growth of cabbage right over that and you can't scan it, but that that's where the fish are gonna be, that's where your group's gonna be. Um, that you can flip a jig in there, you know, maybe a bronco bug on a quarter or three-eighth ounce weight, and uh those are kind of the key magic spots that get overlooked because you can't really see that hard stuff come mid summer.

SPEAKER_01 39:51

Yeah, pretty dang tough. Tough to see them in that. Yeah. Uh dude, so you pull up to an offshore school, you know, you you put 360 megalive down, and you can see them there in the grass. Some of them are on bottom, some of them might be a couple feet up. What's your process of bait selection? Like, what are you gonna start with and then adjust to? If granted these are northern fish, you don't usually have to adjust much, but like what's your what's your go-tos?

SPEAKER_00 40:18

If I so if it's maybe a little bit more hard bottom oriented and it's off the weed edge where you can rip a crankbait through there clean, that's kind of my number one starting point. Um, and then my progression from there is typically like a C rig is next, you know, drag a bronco bug or like a hedgehog through there, and then beyond that would be probably a drop shot or an eco. And we're talking kind of hard bottom areas, maybe just off the weed edge. If these fish are up in the grass, maybe that mid-range, I'm typically starting with a heavy jig or a heavy Texas rig. It's kind of my number one like flip in there, quick sync, try and get that reaction bite. It's similar to the reaction bite to the crankbait, but you're just using a um, you know, a jig or a Texas rig, but it's heavy, so it's like it's getting down in there quick. And if that, you know, maybe you get a few on it, and then the bite slows beyond after that. I'm typically going to a Nico or a drop shot. The drop shot is like a heavier drop shot, is probably one of the best cleanup baits in that scenario because you're still able to get like down through the vegetation, get the bait right in their face, and then just let it sit and hang it there. Um besides that, you're pretty limited. Like you can't, if you got an eight-foot area and the grass sticks up six, seven feet, you can't really do much else besides that. Um, maybe if you had a slight breeze, you could rip a chatterbait or a swim jig around in there. But so often your biggest bites here in the Midwest and our natural lakes come on a jig or a Texas rig in those submerged vegetation type places.

SPEAKER_01 42:06

So you mentioned heavy drop shot. How heavily talking?

SPEAKER_00 42:10

Yeah, three-eighths, half. Like if you're gonna throw it on a bait caster, you go up to a half. Um, kind of like a bubba shot. You know, put uh either a three-out worm hook on there, or maybe even a straight shank if you're flipping, you know, 17 to 20 pound fluorocarbon. So it's you can either go the finesse route, but even if you're throwing on a spinning rod in that heavy vegetation, I probably would have at least a 12-pound fluorocarbon lead. Um, because when you get the bite, you need the power to get them up and out of there, too.

SPEAKER_01 42:45

Yeah. God, the power shot, dude. I've I'm feeling nostalgic right now. I don't think I've thrown that since like since I was in college.

SPEAKER_00 42:55

Yeah, it's just so effective on those submerged grass fish. Um it's just like it's almost like flipping, but just a slight bit more finesse. Yeah.

unknown 43:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:08

I keep it. This has been a weird week where I just keep like encountering baits that I haven't I've realized over the past like two, three years, especially. I've gotten so tunnel visioned on like a certain lineup that just always catches them, and then I forget about these one-offs.

SPEAKER_00 43:24

That it's hard to do it all. Like, I find myself doing that too. Um, especially like you go to ICAS and you talk to all these guys about different techniques and ways to catch them, it just gets your like wheels turning, like, oh, I need to try that, I need to try this. Like, I've been throwing the free rig a little bit more, and that's super effective. Um, you know, we talk about like I other ideas for these offshore fish. The free rig is a great one. The one place I've found where it's maybe just not as efficient is really um thicker submerged vegetation, you know. You got like thick milfoil or something where you want the whole package to kind of get down in there. If you're flipping there with a free rig, like your weight gets down and your bait kind of gets hung up. So you the free rig I've found is better, like completely clean bottom or more sparse vegetation. You know, you've got some cabbage maybe that doesn't grow as thick as milfoil or coontail. It's good in that. Um, but you get into those coontail clumps where you're really wanting to get it down in there, it just can be a little harder to do, but that's super effective as well.

SPEAKER_01 44:35

Yeah, the free rig has been one of the mainstays for a little while. Uh, and it's it's cool, but also a bummer to see that becoming more and more popular right now because of it for a while, for whatever reason, it was more like a uh a smallmouth deal, and now it's become very widely used just everywhere, but for good reason, because there's so many different things you can throw on it too. Um but speaking of which that hedgehog on the free rig is I think is one of my favorites.

SPEAKER_00 45:03

Cool. I haven't tried that, yeah. But I can totally understand that.

SPEAKER_01 45:08

For uh one of the this is what shined to me. It was a couple weeks ago, and I was fishing it. We have a lake with some stumps and stuff, and for whatever reason, there's smallmouth in the lake, but they'll get on the stumps. And like on one stump, caught a four-pound largemouth, a three-pound smallmouth, and then a five-pound largemouth. Um all right, I guess brown ones like this too. Yeah, yeah, that's cool. Um, but I love that you said the free rig because it is getting very, very popular. Um, I think every week in Bass Blaster, I see something about the free rig.

SPEAKER_00 45:41

Yeah, it's just um just slightly different than an unpegged Texas rig, which we threw a a lot up here growing up. You know, now I peg my Texas rig a lot when I'm flipping shallow. It's like you almost have to. Um, but on our offshore grass lines, I never used to peg it. So it kind of act like a free rig a little bit, but the free rig is still different enough that it had the unpegged Texas rig kind of like pendulums through the water on the fall, and that free rig is like straight fall, more so. So it's definitely a little bit different. I could see that hedgehog, it has so many appendages and so much to kind of like slow it down that it would I could see how that would work well on the free rig. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:26

I haven't found a lot that doesn't work well on the free rig, though. Sure, to be fair, but uh yeah. Um with that, dude. I got two things left for you, and we'll we'll uh we'll let you go here. And that is simply what do you think is the most overrated bait for summer and the most underrated bait for summer?

SPEAKER_00 46:48

Overrated bait. Man, I think underrated bait for me, I think, is crankbait. I think like especially in the current times of bass fishing that we're in right now, I think a crankbait is very underrated. Um it still is a really good fish catcher. It's just kind of forgotten about a little bit now with with the advancements of technology and kind of the soft plastics world that we live in. Um overrated. That's a good question.

SPEAKER_01 47:31

Trying to think what what people like overrated for for you, especially, because everything works in part of the world in the summer.

SPEAKER_00 47:41

Yeah, it does. I mean, a lot of stuff works here in the summertime. Um, I'm trying to think of something that gets thrown a ton. Like you could say a wacky rig, but I don't know if that's really overrated because it kind of just catches them. Um, I'd say maybe on your pressured bodies of water, a wacky rig could be a little overrated. Like I just from talking to guys that fish uh like Minnetonka and the Twin Cities, I think you know, wacky rig still catches them. I just don't know if it's the best thing to be throwing for like a big bite necessarily. Um that's and I I think everybody throws it too, that there's better options out there right now. Um that might be that might be my my uh most overrated, but watch, I'll go throw it in like the next tournament, catch them on it.

SPEAKER_01 48:37

Hey, I'll I'm all aboard the wacky rig is overrated training. It's one of those things that, like you said, always works, but gosh, it is boring.

SPEAKER_00 48:46

It can be boring, and you gotta be kind of dialed in with it to like make it work in a tournament because it's slow, like you gotta really take your time with it.

SPEAKER_01 48:55

But yeah, you know what I'll say too is overrated. The frog is not overrated, but the popping frog in the summer is drives me crazy how many fish I lose on a popping frog.

SPEAKER_00 49:05

Yeah, it's um I found one out there I've talked about it a little bit that I really like for a popping frog right now. Have you thrown the gambler one at all?

SPEAKER_01 49:17

No, I've I've seen it, I have not gotten my hands on one yet. That they just came out with that what last year?

SPEAKER_00 49:22

Yeah, a couple years ago. Um, it's not as heavy as some of the other frogs out there, so from a skipping standpoint, you can do it, it's just not as effective. Um, but knock on wood, I've hardly lost any fish on it. It's super soft, and the hooks are pushed back further. So if you um are looking for a popping frog that has like really good hook to land ratio, I would try that one.

SPEAKER_01 49:50

I'll have to do that. Is that with without any mods, like bending hooks out anything like that?

SPEAKER_00 49:55

Uh you you can bend the hooks out a little bit, yeah. But if you look at it, like the um the design of it is those legs are further back from the hooks, so there's a lot bigger gap between the bend of the hook and the legs, so those legs don't really get in the way, and then the the material is just super soft, and it was kind of the guys in Florida, I think are the ones that kind of did a lot of the RD on it because a poppin' frog on like Okeechobee is a big deal, right? And I think that's kind of where it originated uh in terms of that design. Obviously, poppin' frog's been around for a long time, but yeah, that's been a good one. I mean, I used to throw the Terminator one a lot, but they quit making it, and so I wanted to find something that um you know I that was still in production could buy.

SPEAKER_01 50:50

Yeah, makes sense, yeah. Well, dude, thank you so much for taking time out and coming on here, man. Uh it's good to catch up with you at iCast. Good to catch up with you here and do a little more bass and deep dive with you, man.

SPEAKER_00 51:02

Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Thanks for having me. And uh, yeah, hopefully see you down the road soon.

SPEAKER_01 51:07

Heck yeah, dude. Let me know uh if you need anything on your way north and go catch them up at Champlain, dude. We'll be rooting for you. Thanks, Bailey. Appreciate it. All right, folks, and that is gonna do it for today's episode. Thank you to Mr. Bob Downey for joining us. We uh couldn't help myself, we went into a little bit of a 10-minute urchin uh urchent tangent there at the beginning um because I'm excited for all the new stuff that's out because I do love the urchin bite. It is fun, regardless if you're using forward facing or not. A ridiculous thing I saw recently was some I posted something about the new evolution urchin bag, they call it the um the dice divider, and someone had commented that we're all cheaters, we're all guilty of cheating for using forward facing. And this just kind of shows where certain people in this industry like don't be so narrow-minded, guys. Like, fishing is fun. Stop like the urchin is not just a forward-facing sonar, but I think if we learned anything this year from Chris Johnston, uh myself personally using it without forward facing, uh, we've seen so many instances where the urchin just catches them regardless. And I literally posted a video of that comment, kind of roasted the guy a little bit. Uh kind of like hey, here's an example. You know, it's not cheating if you're not even using scope. Um, it's not cheating in general. The you can't hate on a bait for catching bass. That's one thing that people are like, the the people that are not welcoming to the urchin bait because it's new and flashy, it makes no sense to me. Do you guys not want to catch fish? Like that's like the Alabama rig coming out and be like, oh no, that catches too many fish. I don't want to throw that. Like that just that concept blows my mind. It's not a scope bait, guys. It's it's great with scope. But so many baits are great with scope. But there's a lot of baits that are also great without scope. All right, I'm about to go into another tangent, so I'm gonna I'm gonna stop myself here, say thank you, Mr. Bob Downey. Uh, we will have new real biology shows coming up on Monday, as well as next week, guys. I will be headed to the Susquehanna River for a Bassmaster Kayek event. Uh, so we'll be getting those shows recorded ahead of time and out next week for you guys, uh, which I need to get done here in the next couple days, which we're gonna have panel shows for you guys. We got some new panel shows coming up with uh various topics that we're working on. So look forward to those. Those will be a little bit longer, but filled with juice and likely three to four different guests. Um, but we're gonna get those out. I got a wedding this weekend, I got the Susky next week, uh, and then the Susky again the week after that. Uh busy couple weeks, but we will be making sure we get episodes out and on time for you guys. Y'all, I appreciate you guys so much for taking time and listening to today's episode. If you're listening on, uh excuse me, you're watching on YouTube, like subscribe, leave us a rating and review if you're listening on MP3. Appreciate y'all. We'll see ya on the next one.