Quote Originally Posted by CHECrappie View Post
Well on some posts they say summertime pattern and are catching them in 5’ of water.
If your year has gone like a lot of ours has, then yeah .... they may well still be in shallow water or suspended shallow over deeper water. Most answers are given as to how a "normal" year's pattern would be. This year's weather has been anything but "normal" for most of us.

I might catch a few early, in shallow water .... if that water is in the shade for most of the morning. But, let the Sun shine on that water and poof ... they gone. Then your choice is to go find deeper cover, or get out the trolling rods & cranks/jigs and start Pushing/Pulling over the flats or along the channel edge (esp. when the Shad schools are present).

Other places, a Summer Pattern may be night fishing under lights (esp with little to no Moon present).

The last time I was out, the bites I was getting were "very reluctant" bites ... no thump, no hammering the bait, just all of a sudden there was a little extra resistance in the retrieve. Why ??? .... I think it was because most of the fish that bit that way were females still full of eggs and they were just instinctively biting the lures & not so much due to hunger. The quick change from cold water to flooded lakes to more cold and then almost instantly to hot weather just didn't give them time to develop their eggs before the water temps were quickly approaching the maximum temp range for any potentially successful spawn. At the lake I was at, the surface temps are in the low 80's on the surface to around 5ft deep and in the high 70's at 10ft deep. Around here that's mid to late June temps ... and we've had them most all this month.