is it too hot for fishing?

[splashhopper]

I have noticed that shore fishing for bass has taken a serious plunge this last week with all the heat and humidity.

 

I have tried fishing under trees and shrubs by wading into the ponds and rivers to no avail.

 

Was out on the fundraiser yesterday and the fishing was slow for bigger fish... lots of little bass though.

 

 

So, in this heat and humidity here are a couple of questions:

 

1) Do the fish head to the deeper sections of the lakes/ponds for cooler temps ?

 

2) Does the heat make the fish sluggish like most of us humans?

 

3) Will natural baits be a better option than the artificial in these conditions?

 

 

 

Please add any other suggestions you can think of as well.

Thanks..

 

Splashhopper

[Burning Babies]

This summer has been very cool. Even down here, water temperatures are now where near a bass's optimum metabolic level (somewhere around the mid 80's). Being cold blooded, bass's metabolism continues to increase until it surpasses that peak, forcing them to eat more. However, during mid to late summer, a couple of factors influence what the bass are doing. First, there are more prey available now than any other time of year, frequently allowing them to be very selective. And while they do feed a lot, they are able to fill their needs in a very short window of activity. Second, there are often booms in offshore baitfish populations at this time of year, which may lead a large proporiton of the bass to use deeper offshore habitat where they can intercept those large baitfish schools. That assumes prey like shad or smelt are available in they system you fish.

[gone_fishin]

i'm not exactly sure what type of water your fishing, but you mentioned ponds/rivers... so i'm thinking maybe swampy type locations... if this is the case, the bigger fish are probably buried in THICK slop or thick pads. they want to get out of the sun as much as we do.