What do you do when the shallow bite turns off?

Say you’re tossing spinnerbaits or cranks to rip rap, shallow wood, etc. on the river and catching some decent bass. The next day, these fish have seemingly vanished. What do you do?

p.s. This could help me a lot as I’m a bit of a beginner bank beater–especially on the river! BTW, really hammered ’em yesterday around rip rap on topwaters and cranks. Seemed to be really tight to the bank–I couldn’t get a topwater too close and my bro blanked on a deep diver while my dad got ’em on a shallow running crank.

hmmmm this should be interesting… . we just had a big discussion on the walleye board of what do you do when hot weather sets in…. this question is pretty much the same thing…. might be worth reading as things were discussed such as water temps, light penetration, food availability and such……

Im sorry I dont have any tried and trued answers for this…. but I bet some of our other guys do… for me, I just change rivers… Ive always been able to FIND the fish in smaller rivers…. like say the Root….. or the Cannon… or the Kettle or the Snake or the Rum…… and when you find them you will catch them… cuz you can just mess around until you find what works when….

on the Miss I would probably work the wingdams for SMB…. seems like I catch them all summer on the wingies when Im fishing white bass or walleyes……

For what it’s worth in my experience, rip rap seems to continue to hold fish…possibly just deeper. I’ve always had good luck slowly cranking a shallow rebel cray along rip rap in damn near any condition! Smallies love the thing!

I think you have to look at it as two different topics, smallmouth and largemouth. But first of all remember the first rule of bass fishing……no rule always applies.

For smallies, I think rivereyes is right, the smallies will somewhat follow the current alot like walleyes. Many of my best bites when the water is really low and warm have been off wing dams. Seems that smallies often like smaller ones than walleyes too, anyone else noticed this??? I LOVE hitting the surface on top of the dams in August with a popper or plastic stickbaits.

For largies, I like to go either into the deepest thickest cover I can find that has really good overhead cover (duckweed, pads) and lively green veg underneath. The other tactic is to head out to the edge of the weeds, especially if the area has a little current, but not a heavy current. Deep, sharp weededges in lakes are often good when the heat is on too.

yeah… the SMB dont seem to use quite the same wingies as the eyes or even the white bass…… BUT, sometimes they will share… usually a different location… like the SMB on the inner half and the eyes on the outer…… usually I find that white bass like the shallowest wingies… then the SMB like a little deeper and the eyes like the deepest ones… location of course plays an additional part, as well as depth of the dam… because it does make a difference how much current is hitting it…..

I have to reiterate the notion that the bite never really goes away………………it’s just a matter of finding the right thing. I’ve had both river and lake bass bite under all conditions, with the exception being ice fishing. Never found a biting bass ice fishing. I know that they can go deep or stay in thick cover but I’ve done well to always find the bite, given enough time. The areas that have produced before have always seemed to produce again if searched thoroughly enough. But there is always room for scouting and learning too…………..something I’m currently working on myself!

funny I used to catch LOTS of bass through the ice in Iowa… but up here its very rare……. for some reason…..

I try to fish the Miss. around Monticello a few times a year for smallies and have found or I should say “been shown”that if you can’t find them on the typical structures near the bank they are in the fast water midstream.Deep current cuts,channel edges.and shallow boulder strewn runs.Matter of fact from now thru september that is where I start my search.I think that alot of these deep water current cut areas may be like wing dams (there are no wing dams near Monticello).Its where the water goes from deep to shallow and the current is slowed at the base but very fast on the surface.The guy I learned this from calls them “pushes”For the rocky runs using a crankbait(my favorite is a ratlle rap)cast upstream and reeled in as fast as possibe always seems to produce best.The water is usually really cliping along fast but there are some big ones in there.You rarely see any runts in the boulder runs.