Summertime fishing can be tough, especially shallow. But even when the water temps top out over 90 degrees, you can still catch bass in 1 to 10 feet of water if you know what to look for. And you don’t necessarily have to drag a worm to get bit either. You can throw topwaters for sure, like buzzbaits, Ploppers and frogs. But you can crank up bass shallow in the summer too. And that’s what we’re going to talk about today.

Muddy Water -

Bass tend to be a little less spooky in low visibility situations. This makes it a easier to catch bass shallow in stained to muddy water, as opposed to super clear water. You can still catch fish shallow on a crankbait in clearer water, especially if there’s current present or the fish are setup on a break, but we’ll talk more about those two in a minute.

For cranking shallow muddy water, a squarebill works best. Squarebills are more weedless than most crankbaits, thanks to their wider “square” bills. These bills also deflect well off cover. This makes baits like the MONSTERBASS SquareBanger and Hammerhead great for shallow water cranking in the summer.

Look for areas with a foot or so of visibility and cover present. You can catch bass in even muddier situations than this in the summer, but you’ll likely need a little current to do so. Throw your squarebill around rocks, stumps, brush, docks, grass and anything else you can find.

You may not get many bites in a day’s time, but the chances of catching a big one are good and you can cover a lot more water with a squarebill, as opposed to a slower moving Texas rig.

Current -

Current is one of the biggest keys to catching bass in the summer, no matter the depth or the water color. When you have current present, the water is typically a little cooler and has better oxygen levels. The moving water also positions bass and baitfish behind cover, making them easier to target.

A shallow running crankbait like the MONSTERBASS Seeker 6 is great for these situations. The Berkley Dime 4 is another great bait. Both of these run 4 to 6 feet deep, which is often great for grinding the lake bed below dams, where there’s almost always a little current running at minimum in the summer months.

Rivers and creeks with natural current setup well for shallow cranking too. Basically just take your crankbait and fan cast it around. Sometimes the bass will setup on a current seam, between the swift water and the slack water. Other times, you can catch them throwing right out into the swiftest part of the current, as your bait passes by submerged rocks and other cover that you may not be able to see with the naked eye.

You’ll want to use a crankbait that can get down to the bottom, but just barely. You don’t want to use a 10-foot diver for instance if you’re fishing in 4 feet of water. Instead, one of these 4- to 6- foot divers is perfect, so that you can crank your bait down to the bottom and keep it there, but not run the risk of hanging up near as much as you would with a deeper diver.

Breaks -

Shallow cranking works well too when you can find an area with a sharp break in the contour, where the water goes from shallow to deep quickly. These points, ledges, bends and banks will often have cover present as well, in the form of manmade brush or natural stumps and boulders.

If you can find an area like this, especially when there’s a little current present, you can still catch fish cranking relatively shallow up on top of these breaks in 6 to 10 feet of water. Something like the Seeker 8 or even Seeker 12 is better suited for this situation.

Even if you’re only fishing in 8 to 10 feet of water, the Seeker 12 (which dives to 12 feet) is easier to get down to the bottom. And these areas aren’t usually as snaggy, with less rocks and less current than you’d expect to see under a dam.

Brush is a big key to catching bass on these breaks. The contour may be the same for a hundred yards, but the bass will often lock in on the one or two pieces of cover in that stretch. Burning a shallow running crankbait down into that cover is a great way to generate a strike in the summer. 

In Conclusion -

Though the fishing can certainly be tough in the this time of year, there are still bites to be had—and you can even catch them cranking. The main keys are water color, current and cover. Finding areas with a little deep water near by and/or any combination of these other factors is a great way to locate productive areas to crank in the dead heat of the summer.