I took off Tuesday morning for Lake Athens, and had a very tough day of fishing, only catching three bass. The same thing happened in late June last year, with the fishing becoming very tough. I’d been fishing a bit bigger Ned rig off the edge of weed lines where the water drops off deeper fairly quickly, and had been catching some nice bass that way. I thought that pattern might last a while into summer, but apparently not. I’m certain there are some deeper bass to be found in the summer at Athens, but the couple of guys I’ve talked to who’ve had some success at summer fishing there both mainly fish the thickest shallow vegetation they can find. It takes heavy tackle to land decent fish caught that way, not the finesse tackle I use. I probably just need to fish elsewhere until Athens has some cooler water this fall.

Yesterday (Thursday), I fished the lower end of Cedar Creek, and had a much better day, catching 20 bass and one channel cat. All fish were caught on Ned rigs. The summer fishing will eventually get very tough at Cedar Creek too, but it seems to hold up longer into the summer than at Lake Athens. I’ll likely soon be just fishing under bridges for crappie, and even that will be tough fishing, but even in the dog days of summer, I usually manage to catch a few really nice crappie that way, and fishing under a bridge in the summer has the added bonus of being a cooler fishing spot than out in the sun. But for now, with the bass still biting well, I’ll keep playing with them for a while.

I’ve been fishing a bit bigger Ned rig lately. Ever since I started fishing Ned rigs a couple of years ago, I’ve mainly fished the Finesse Trd’s, which are 2 3/4 inches long. They are great baits that catch not only a lot of bass, but lots of other fish species as well, including some really nice crappie. I’ve been fishing Lake Athens a lot lately, and it’s bass are bigger on average than Cedar Creek’s bass, and I thought a bigger bait might be better. So I took a Big Trd, which is 4 inches long, and cut it down to 3 1/4 inches. I’m still using it on the same 1/16 ounce mushroom head jig I always use. It’s caught fish well at Athens, and even better at Cedar Creek, so has become my standard Ned rig lately. That bigger high floating Trd makes you work the bait slower, in order to keep it from coming too close to the surface, and slower is better, it seems.

I’ve also done some experimenting with a even bigger 3 1/2 inch Trd, on a heavier 3/32 ounce jig. I thought a Ned rig that size and weight might work better in a big wind, and in situations where I want to fish deeper. I’ve caught a few fish on it, including two fish yesterday in water that was too windy for my usual size Ned rig, but haven’t used it enough yet to really prove its value. We’ll see.

All three bass from Athens Tuesday were chunky, pretty fish. But there were only three.

I caught this nice bass first thing yesterday morning at Cedar Creek. It weighed 3.56 pounds.

Here is the Ned rig I’ve been fishing lately, a 3 1/4 inch cut down Zman Big Trd, on the standard 1/16 oz homemade mushroom head jig I always use.