Welcome to the IMA Emailer — August 2009 Issue – The IMA EMAILER brings you news from IMA pro staff members across the USA and worldwide. For more on these lures, www.imalures.com

Is it hot where you live? If it’s not, please, please tell us where you reside so we can travel there.

Whether you live in Florida, California, Alabama or Minnesota, hot weather is the norm this time of year. A few weeks ago the IMA Elite Series pros traveled to Lake Oneida in upstate New York and encountered 90-plus temperatures every day. South Carolina pro-staffer Michael Murphy went to Dardanelle in Arkansas and sweated non-stop for his entire stay. This week he’s at Clarks Hill closer to home and it’s more of the same.

While you’re sweating, so are the bass. Well, not literally — they live in water, after all — but the summer heat affects them the same way it does you. They can’t go sit in the shade with a tall glass of sweet tea or lemonade, but they still want to take it easy nonetheless.

Fortunately for us, fish still have to feed in the summer, even during the hottest periods. Just as a hot bowl of soup might not tempt you right now, their taste buds are fickle. With that in mind, we went to some of the IMA pros to learn what they’re doing to turn the summer doldrums into big catches.

Ohio’s Bill Lowen may be the ultimate shallow water fanatic. If his trolling motor isn’t kicking up mud, he’s not happy. So when he hits the major impoundments and the mercury is nearing triple digits, you probably won’t find him sitting on a hump or ledge unless he absolutely has to do it.

“This time of year I like to go up the rivers,” he said. “Those fish are current-oriented and I target laydowns and log jams.”

He’s not particular about which wood he fishes. It’s all golden to him as long as it’s close to deep water, which in this case can mean as little as a few inches at the base of the logs and 4 or 5 feet at the end of the portion that extends furthest. But he is particular about the lures that he uses, and in many instances his number one tool is an IMA Shaker crankbait.

“Being from Ohio, I grew up fishing all the handmade balsas and this is pretty much identical,” he said. “You want to deflect it off any cover you can find.” Sometimes a worm or a jig won’t trigger the strikes and a spinnerbait isn’t as natural, so the Shaker gets the job done.

“When it’s 90 degrees the baitfish are still up there, so I go with a shad pattern,” he continued. “It’s more natural so you get a better reaction.”

While cranking often involves light line to maximize diving depths, that’s not a concern in this case, so Lowen gets rid of his 10 or 12 pound line and spools up with 15 or 17 pound well rope. “I’m not concerned with getting it on the bottom,” he said. “And once they’re buttoned, you can get them out of the nasty stuff real fast.” You may end up surprised at how shallow some of the biggest fish in the lake can live.

With his background in fisheries biology, Michael Murphy can explain how depleted summer oxygen levels slow down the metabolism of the bass, but it’s enough to know that they, like you, just want things a little cooler. Often, on lakes throughout the mid-south, that forces them down about 10 feet.

But just because you have them pegged doesn’t mean they’re catchable. Those suspended fish are some of the toughest of the year to catch. Murphy found that to be the case at Dardanelle earlier this month, where he figured out a little something and sacked a monstrous (for that event) 11 pound limit on the third day to vault into the money.

“It was super-tough and the fish were suspending,” he recalled. “That happens a lot this time of year. They sometimes get to suspending out on deep points or in the guts of coves.” The key then, he added, is to find the shad. They too are growing quickly so they can’t hide in the shallows any more. They bunch up and the fish keep tabs on them.

Murphy uses two IMA baits to keep tabs on them himself. The first is the Rock N Vibe lipless crankbait. He uses it to cover a lot of water and trigger reaction strikes. “Despite what people may thing, that tight wobble is not just for spring,” he said. “It’s good any time their metabolism is low.”

His second tool is the IMA Skimmer topwater bait. After all, what could be better for the Dog Days than a lure that makes it easier to “walk the dog” than anything that comes before it. It too is a great fish locator, but it particularly excels when fish are breaking the surface during their brief spasms of activity. The Skimmer casts a country mile and nothing on the market today resembles an injured shad more closely.

With both lures Murphy favors patterns that resemble baitfish and have “as much flash as possible.” He typically throws them on a 7 foot medium-heavy baitcasting rod and 12 lb. Big Game monofilament. “I keep it simple,” he said.

As the mercury near his home rarely dips below 80 this time of year, with 90s more the norm, Captain Karl Bunch has stayed busy with the red hot bassing of the Upper Chesapeake Bay. The bay’s grasses are thick, lush and green this time of year, and like most anglers Capt. Karl spends plenty of time frogging with his favorite Optimum Furbit and punching the mats with big weights and small soft plastics. But he said that anyone who puts his hard baits away right now is committing fishing suicide.

“We released the Rattlin’ Roumba at the perfect time,” he said. Has his brain gotten a little baked in the hot Maryland sun? Hardly. He’s probing the outer grass edges on the Upper Bay and its tributaries with the hottest wake bait on the market.

“I’m looking for eelgrass mixed with hydrilla and milfoil,” he continued. “It’s like a nice umbrella for the bass to cool down under. You want to run that bait down the edges as close to the grass without getting caught in it. That outside edge is closer to deep water and on a lower tide that’s where they’re more comfortable.”

The results have been nothing less than remarkable. As others have complained about tough fishing, Capt. Karl and his clients have caught, photographed and released a parade of 4-, 5- and 6-pounders.

He retrieves the lure on the surface, “just fast enough to make a nice steady wake.” How does he know when it’s time to go to this presentation? Typically it’s when he starts getting a lot of short strikes on the frog. “They have the heart but they don’t have the energy,” he said.

When it’s comparatively clear, he’ll start with Blue Shad, but if there’s a bit of run-off he can’t wait to throw out his special “Double Cheeseburger,” which resembles a bluegill or yellow perch. “That produces by far the most and biggest fish,” he said. When he wants to create even more ruckus, he’ll add a hitchhiker and a Double Diamond swimbait to the rear hook hanger.

On days when you could fry an egg on the sidewalk, when just a trip to the mailbox requires two Gatorades, it’s easy to stay inside in the air-conditioned comfort of home. But just because you and the fish are lethargic doesn’t mean that you can’t fool them into biting. Pack up some cold drinks, a lot of sunscreen and some key IMA baits and head to the water — there will be time for comfort, and fish stories, later on.
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