Slow Largemouth Bass Fishing

Since the beginning of June, the bass fishing has really slowed down for us. At least when compared to how we were doing in May. We've been throwing everything at them (jigs, spinnerbaits, crankbaits, top water, plastic worms, swimbaits, etc.) and haven't caught anything worth blogging about. The last two Saturdays I have even got up at 4am to go bass fishing. Both mornings my hopes were high and I expected to catch some picture worthy fish but that wasn't the case. I fished some small local lakes and both days I was on the water before 6am.

The first day I tried jigs and spinnerbaits. I ended up only catching 5 in about 6 hours, 3 on the jig and 2 on the spinnerbait, all of which were 13-14 inches. I actually lost the biggest fish of the day on my first cast of the morning, it may have went 16 inches or so. Sean joined me on the second Saturday morning. I tried top water and crankbaits. The top water bite wasn't too bad but the size was still not there. I ended up catching 10 on top water and 1 on crankbait, all in the 10-14 inch range. Here's a picture of the biggest one from that day, it had some sort of scar where something must have tried to eat it when it was little.

I also caught several tiny green sunfish that were managing to get hooked on a popper nearly as long as they were.

Sean fished the opposite side of the lake and It's safe to say I got the good side. He managed 2 bass on the morning and didn't find the top water bite that I did. We fished for 5 hours that morning. Once the sun peaked over the hills, the bite died.

Many other trips have been similar results. Maybe I was just setting my hopes too high but I thought if I got up at 4am I was going to catch some 16inch+ bass for sure. At this point I'm unsure if the slow fishing is due to a post-spawn period, bad luck, wrong baits, or our expectations have just gotten too high after doing so well in May. May is one of the best months for bass fishing in Ohio if not the best. I think for the most part it is the post spawn and setting our expectations too high.