I know right now it's pretty easy to catch blues in the shallow water, but where do they tend to go in the summer?

They are still in the lake, but with the shad all scattered they are too.

Deep water

Lol! Thanks I'll keep lookin in the lake then!

If you go at night in the summer you can still catch some big ones shallow. In the day (summer)I usually drift just because it's cooler on the main lake & I can jump in if I get too hot, even take float rafts for the girls to drift behind the boat, very relaxing way to fish & catch a lot of fish. Concentrate on ares with humps & valleys & close to points & most of all anywhere you know there are sandbass around there will be blues feeding in the area. Watch the thermocline & don't fish too deep.
Beside, I have never been flashed while fishing shallow in the summer
...Don

Summer schools? (just a joke- no sense in reporting to the mods......... )

90 plus percent of the photosynthesis takes place in the Limnetic part of the lake during this time. That attracts phyto and zoo plankton and that attracts the shad. You kinda catching on to the pattern lol. Deep water wont hold much oxygen during the summer months which will keep most fish suspended out of the deep and up in the limnetic zone. Safe to say close to the thermoc line. At night you it does good to fish the littoral zone. You do good to keep your bait suspended just above the weed beds such as slip bobber fishing if the top of the weeds are deeper than 5 foot or so in clear lakes. The edge of Lilly pads is another good spot to fish during summer. Course fish the running water coming into the lakes when the rivers or creeks are up. When the lakes are flooded lots of catfish will be in the weeds in 3 foot of water and less. When the lakes are low you can have pretty good luck fishing heavy structure like old thick trees where lots of commerants like to roost. Lots of other ways to have sucksess in the summer but these are some of the ways. I preffer the other seasons over summer though haha

anyfishwilldo is hundred%right about the sandbass areas. My added suggestion would be to try fishing areas with standing timber in around 10-15ft depth.sandbass feeding flats at night are also good spots to try. Don't fish areas deeper than say 18ft because of the thermacline.Drifting is a good way to fish these areas in the warm water temps . Check your lake map looking for these areas around
timber in these depths to look for clearings that look clear and they may have been hayfeilds, pastures,etc. in their day.
Bankfishing these same areas are also productive but you don't really need the clearing for drifting, just an open area for fishing. Structure like creek/river channels,levees are also great to target.

Well said Dave, my post was gonna be like yours so I will save the time typing it. +1

Thanks for the info guys. Last summer I spent a lot of time drifting and it seemed to produce ok. I just wanted to be sure I was on the right track. I will definately be trying to locate some sandbass areas.

Before I got into catfishing I caught a 29lbs blue on a crank bait casting into schooling sandies. The reel backlashed a little and the bait fell to the bottom as I was fixing it. When I started to reel it back in I thought I got snagged but when the snag started pulling back...
Big cats and LMB both will trail behind schooling sandbass and scoop up the dead or wounded shad that the frenzied sandbass don't eat as they fall to he bottom. You don't get to be a big mamma by doing all the hard work yourself I guess...

Hawaii

say you are drifting over an area that is 30 foot deep in the summer looking for monster cats. How much line do you let out? In my experience the point rod that I let the most line out on (useually about 60+ feet) catches the most fish.

we anchor fish for them after we find them on side imaging. But, there are many ways you can catch them.

Last night we scanned till we found this:



then,

we caught this:

Hey salsa that image looks a little fuzzy to me how can you tell theres fish there? are there big ones or little ones? Are we looking at the white spots or the shadows?