Northwoods Bass Fishing Report – August 2021

Summer season has come and gone. For me personally, it was a blur, and one NOT to remember.

July flew by, and here we are in middle of August. Summer patterns for both smallmouth and largemouth have been in play for well over a month. Bass fishing in the northwoods continues to be mediocre. On good weather days, fishing is good. On poor weather days and post-thunderstorm, very poor.

It’s the dog days of summer now.

I recently concluded my summer season guide trips that took place from July 26th thru August 11th. As of late, we’ve had some very good days on the water, and some poorer days on the water. This has all been a product of each day’s weather, yet also relative to lake choices, preference of species, and fishing style. Unless sunny with some wind chop, smallmouth have been belligerent and uncooperative for the most part, while largemouth bass have been more reliable. You just got to take what the fish and lakes will give you each day, and do not settle for anything.

We are past summer peak, and many of our bass now live offshore. Most fish will be living offshore now thru fall turnover, but will revisit near-shore areas if the food is present.

Big females continue to be MIA. We haven’t put a single 20″ into the boat since Memorial Day Weekend. WTF. I have some thoughts on this down below….

We’re finding fish in a lot of lake locations. If the first hour on one lake is a struggle, jump to the next nearest. No point in being stubborn to force feed for bites. Each day we’re working 2-3-4 lakes per day until we meet a satisfactory bite. On one full day trip, we fished a total of 6 lakes!

My daily strategy has been committing to 1 lake only from sunrise to late morning. When bite slows, try another. By 1-2pm shut-off time, retire for the day. And if seeking additional time, select 1 more lake and commit to it for the evening thru sunset.

Fish early and late. Presently there is an obvious morning bite that has lasted from sunrise thru late morning. Midday thru afternoon hours has been near worthless unless air temps remain cooler midday or there is a weather change. Then the fishing picks back up again during evening to sunset hour.

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Bass Bling

LARGEMOUTH BLING – Largemouth bass are often reliable, abundant, and willing day-to-day participants. While most mornings and evenings have been good, the periods following thunderstorms have resulted in poor, skittish bites. Since late July, we’ve had several of them, making any fishing challenging.

Location is most important right now. LMB’s are present in concentration along some deep green weedlines. Depths I like to search are 10-18ft zones. Green cabbage and coontail is tops for me.

Additionally, they’re present in areas with the highest concentration of juvenile bluegills. The best locations are offshore, and deep weeds. These last few weeks we’ve been catching many fish on swim jigs with craw or paddletail trailers, Kalin’s Fishing wac-o’s, drop-shot rigs, Tokyo rigs, Carolina rigged worms and lizards, and an assortment of Freedom Tackle FT Series structure jigs with Bizz Baits Bizz Bugs and Missile Baits D-bomb creatures.

These past few weeks, we’ve been tackling our summer largemouths with a variety of St. Croix Rods that includes the entry-level Bass-X, the workman-like Mojo Bass, BRAND NEW Victory rods, and the upper-level Legend Tournament.

What’s common about the set-ups we’re using, they’re all MHF and heavier actions, necessary for extraction from weeds and other types of deep cover.

This season, I’ve gotten myself back into the C-rigging game for both smallmouth and largemouth. The Victory Marshall, a 7ft 3″ MHF handles this application very well.

If fishing shallows, you will find steady action around docks and flooded bogs and tamarack bushes. Early or late in the day, pads are active locations as well. This shallow water bite has been reliable since June if your lakes don’t have much to offer in deep, offshore habitats.

For casting the junk, the 7ft 4″ heavy power Victory Full Contact keeps me in touch with the shallow water, near shore fish.

My go-to rods of choice for this target shooting are Mojo Bass Dock Sniper, and the Legend Tournament Dock Sniper. At 7 foot lengths and heavy power, these rods can handle pitching, flipping, skipping, and long distance casting duties. I have both working in tandem with either casting jigs, or swim jigs. In my hands, the only difference between the two are flex and sensitivity. The Mojo Bass Dock Sniper with its IPC blank has more flex and loading capacity, while the Legend Tournament Dock Sniper and its SCIV blank provides more sensitivity which is excellent for feeling pickups and bites around docks and wood. Both rods are tailor-made for pitching, flipping, and jigging, but are just as good for casting jigs too.

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This time of year, a tell-tale sign of an active fishery is the observation of surface activity. Usually, bluegills and minnow species are schooling heavily sub-surface. Hungry largemouths are on the prowl, commonly busting them early and late in the day. This is what I hope to see anywhere I fish. An active fishery will hold the better fishing, but if millions of yoy bluegills are prevalent like the few times we’ve encountered, expect very difficult fishing to follow.

If fish are offshore, then I’m looking for deep grass and any visible signs of offshore schools of juvenile bluegills that packs of largemouth will gang up on. Bluegill swimmers like the 4.8″ Kalin’s Tickle Tail paddletail (electric blue chartreuse) I have rigged up on a Freedom Hydra head is all it takes sometimes, fished with a slow steady swimming retrieve. The other week, slow swimming this weedless package sub-surface and above the weeds saved a few trips for me. My preferred rod for this is a 7ft MHF St. Croix Avid, the swiss army knife of rods. I have it paired with a size-30 Quantum Catalyst spooled with 15 lb. Cortland Line Masterbraid. Bomb cast and hang on!

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Last, a creature rigged on a plain weedless jig and worked slow thru the grass and edges is always my best producer.

To really load up on the LMB’s right now in the easiest possible way, all you need is a couple of Kalins wacko jigs and a bag of 5″ Wacko worms in baby bass. Less is more, and this is simply fishing.

This could be the end of my largemouth bass fishing for the year, which wasn’t of much success to speak of. But you never know, this bite will stay a bit longer with us until the first few cooldowns of early September arrive.

SMALLMOUTH BLING – Some fishing days good. Others mediocre. A few like most of summer 2021, bad. But the one constant these past few weeks are crayfish bites and very good topwater fishing that has been driven by tip-top conditions for them. Most smallmouth lakes have one or the other currently going.

I have not observed much crayfish activity in the shallows, and this is likely a result of the weather and several thunderstorms. Crankbaits are always good, and I work a variety of them ranging from small Bandit 100 Squarebills, to Rapala Crankin Raps, DT 4’s and 6’s, and a DT 10.

On my deck, you also see a heavy dosage of craw imitating football jigs. All are working depending on your lake selection and venue. Majority of the fish being targeted with them are in the 10-20ft depth zones. Bizz Baits Baby Bizz Bugs worked as jig trailers or by their own on a weedless ned have been very good all summer long. If you enjoy cracking the tube, it’s almost a guaranteed bite right now. Rod tip high and pressure on the line, set those hooks immediately to avoid suicidal smallmouth and gut-hookings.

Keep your jig and plastics stupid simple. Rig your tubes and craws on ned heads, Freedom Tackle swinging head jigs, or with a simple tube insert.

This summer has been the rebirth of topwater bites. After a dismal 2020, they’ve been steady all summer for us, both early and late in the day. On some calm afternoons with cloud cover and high humidity, bust them out and work the Skitter-V and X-Rap Pop atop rock bars or if covering the flats in search of cruising fish. Make very long casts, and don’t ever let the fish see you first.

I treat my topwaters as big fish baits. They get the attention of big bass. Lots of 18-19 inchers fell to them in recent weeks.

New to the armory this summer is St. Croix Rods Victory casting rods. I favor the 7ft 1″ Grunt, a MHF rod. Paired and swapped with a few different reels to handle both 12lb. mono or 20 lb. Cortland Masterbraid (Mono for X-Rap Pop ALWAYS), it’s a great topwater rod. The fast taper and flex of the SCIII+ hybrid blank aids in hook-ups on any treble-hooked baits at long distance.

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The topwater bite is steady into mid September, and as fall nears, it actually picks up! Hang on to your (The Grunt) Victory if you choose to buy one, and enjoy its hook-setting and lure manipulating abilities.

Current Fishing Report

Late post from a trip day in early August. Enjoyed hosting Preston and Andrew for smallmouth. Our original intention for the day was to introduce them to more largemouth Bass waters in the St. Germain region, where they have home base, and as they had been a more reliable bite, but we settled for SMB’s as they aren’t yet in their wheelhouse.

 

Conditions were ideal for chasing open water suspended bites, and covering the flats by bombing topwaters.

 

Our best fish fell victim to tubes, squarebill crankbaits, and walk the dog topwaters.

 

Both the Rapala Xrap pop and Skitter-V have been generating awesome strikes and scoring bites throughout July and August. I recall this being completely nonexistent during all of 2020.

 

Early mornings and calm, overcast afternoons have been prime-times for good surface activity like this.

 

What’s Happening Now

From now until Labor Day, fishing will be as steady and predictable as it can be. August is typically one of the most stable weather months of the year, and it generally leads to consistent and predictable fishing. However, time and effort is required, as multiple feeding windows will be taking place daily. Recently, early AM post-sunrise has been awesome, and so too are evenings. Midday can be good just as well, but only if any weather events and changes are taking place.

The same fishing patterns and strategies from end of July carry-over into August. The fishing improves drastically at the onset of summer peak, as trophy hunting patterns become more predictable. Much of the fishing we do is out in deeper depths; for smallmouth onboard and offshore, and mid-depth and deep structure. I prioritize targeting the deep and cooler-water cisco based fisheries, and lakes with high crayfish populations.

Largemouth fishing peaks on the year too, with us frequently fishing algae-bloomed and eutrophic lakes, targeting offshore locations and 10-15ft grass and weedlines. Depending on water temps and weather, some shallow water opportunity is available early and late in the day. Areas I look for are isolated weed humps & bars, offshore points and extensions leading into deep water, the weedlined mouths of bays and pockets, and deep weedlines that drop down and extend into the lake’s basin. Green cabbage & pondweed, and coontail have been best greens. 10 to 15 foot depths is all to look for. However, on some lakes look deeper, and others shallower. Waters that develop a slight green tint and bloom from algae and all the nutrients can deliver the best action and aggressive bites – non spooky fish.

In August, we prefer targeting trophy largemouth and trophy smallmouth.

• Night fishing smallmouth
• AM and late PM topwater smallmouth
• Power cranking smallmouth
• Swimbait and suspended open water smallmouth
• Surface frog and slop fishing largemouth
• Bluegill pattern largemouth
• Crayfish patterns and the molt
• Ned rigs
• Drop shots
• Onboard and offshore

As we progress into August and head towards Labor Day weekend and into September, there will be continued movements of smallmouths into the shallows as long as water temps remain in the low 70’s and cooler. This will relate to presence of forage and cooling water temperatures. Rock bars and offshore points are great areas to start. Then we will have the perch migrations, and a lot of smallmouths will be found utilizing large flats and deep weedlines.

Fall Trip Dates are Nearly Full