Adam Johnson Outdoors • Reading Outdoors

Right Now I'm Thinking Shallow

By Adam Johnson

It's amazing that it won't be long before lakes begin the turnover process. In simple terms this is when the warmer water on the surface turns cooler than the water near bottom and all that water rolls from top to bottom. After that happens the fish can take up space anywhere in the water column they choose. Prior to turnover they have to stay above a barrier called the thermocline where oxygen is at a low point below that transition line.

You want to be on the water prior to turnover because there is some fine fishing to be had. The shallows cool and the big fish that were suspending out in open water above the thermocline can now move into the shallower cover and gorge on the schools of minnows that were relatively untouched by big fish during the mid-summer months. Right now I'm thinking big fish and I'm thinking shallow.

For big pike I like to take a spinnerbait and run it right over the tops of the cabbage, coontail and milfoil. This was a marginal presentation just a few weeks ago, but now that the big fish are roaming high in the cover you can get those big fish to come out and take a swipe at a lure that's zooming over the tops of their head.

I really enjoy the inside weedlines right now for bass and northern pike. If it's bass I want I toss a topwater plug. If it's pike I want to catch then that spinnerbait comes out again. Big bass and pike don't seem a bit uneasy as they roam those shallows along that weedline and look for small perch and sunfish to feast on.

Docks are in the comeback mode right now. In the peak of summer unless you can find some docks that are anchored in deep water all you pull off the shallower docks are small sunnies and little bass. Now those sunnies are running for cover because big bass and northern pike have moved in to make them supper. I toss shallow running crankbaits along the edges of the docks and slow roll spinnerbaits along the base of the dock poles.

I enjoy fishing tangled, gnarly brush that has fallen into the lakes near shore. These blow-downs are productive right now and since most anglers don't like fishing snaggy cover I often get the benefit of having this stuff all to myself.

The key to fishing downed timber and brush is to use a lightweight weedless jig or Texas-rigged plastic worm. This is a slow process where you try to finesse the lure through branches and over limbs. If you get hung up you don't rip the lure free; you ease it out of the snag. Sometimes you break off or get hopelessly snagged, but more often the lure pops loose and sometimes that even generates a bite.

It won't be long and the fall fishing begins. The fish spread out all over and the search begins once again. Right now, just think shallow, and have fun.