Just wondering if anyone else is getting beat up by the "dog days" out on the lake?? Fished Friday/Sat/Sun on 2 lakes....caught 3 fish including getting skunked on one of the lakes.....just curious if it was the hot, high pressure (bluebird skies), or if I need to start working on a new hobby? Hope yalls weekend was better than mine!

you ain't the Lone Ranger..

I can go one day and have really good numbers, and decent size. Go back to the same lake the next day with very similar conditions, and struggle to get bit. It's just that time of the year where it gets tough. I don't mind it. I look at it as a real challenge.

You hit a really hot and humid weekend. Probably worst of the year. I do feel your pain….

You might try it at night.

Not even the mosquitoes were biting two nights ago.

It’s a grind no doubt. Usually the earlier morning hours between sun up and 10 am are your best times. If you are just fun fishing I would limit my time to those hours and then go home.
Tournament fishing just hit those good spots early and if it’s sunny pull out the jig and find docks. You won’t catch that many but at least it gives you what I think is a better opportunity to land one or two more bass.
If it’s still shady or overcast, I would try to find any type current and finesse them into biting.

Fished and won a tourney on Fork Saturday and full moon deal was in full effect, two chunky unders between 6 and 6:15 when it was still dark and then painfully slow until noon when it picked up again, so that could have been a factor this weekend depending on when you were fishing.

This may sound a little silly but I kind of prefer the "dog days of summer" because I know its supposed to be tough. When I don't catch them in the blazing hot summer it makes sense. It's a lot tougher mentally to have really difficult spring days then sit there and scratch your head!

I'm with you. It makes the drive home really rewarding if you can put some in the boat, and you know it was really tough. It's nice to have those days where you can just wear'em out, but it doesn't feel as rewarding. I enjoy putting the work in. If I can't get bit at all; a lot of times I'll just start putting in graph time. Look and scan a bunch. That pays off.

It's just one of the tougher times of the year to get bit consistent. If you don't have a milk-run of really productive brush piles, vegetation or spots where schoolers are consistent it gets really difficult.

Do something different...Caught them all day on Saturday on walk the dog style topwaters around huge schools of shad. Not saying we are anything special but we caught a bunch Saturday doing something that conventional thinking would say not to. We tried deep and slow and all of the normal summer stuff before returning to what was working.

Fished Saturday from just before daylight till noon. Seems they pretty well wanted a buzzbait dirt deep all day. They would hardly react to anything else. Crystal clear water, no vegetation and crushing buzzbaits in 6" of water the whole time I was out there.

Mark I swear you could catch em in a puddle on I20. Even when many struggle, you always seem to catch em. Wow

I struggle a LOT. Saturday was just luck. I expected it to be tough due to conditions. When I say they only wanted a buzzbait I am being serious. I struggled getting bit on anything else.