During the month of June fish activity becomes more predictable and patterns are easy to establish. As the water continues to heat up, the early morning, late evening bite will be the rule for all game fish.

The bass will be looking toward the surface for a big easy meal. Top water lures that create a lot of noise will attack explosive strikes at the break of daylight and again in the evening as the sun sets. If it’s a heavy overcast or rainy day, the surface bite can be good all day long. One trick we learned over the years about summer fishing is the big bass on our area lakes tend to stay shallow and hold in the heaviest cover that offers the most shade.

On lakes like Concordia and St. John, that cover is cypress trees. Unlike the man-made reservoirs that offer the cool comfort of deep water retreats like creek channels and secondary points in deep water, the bottom of the oxbow lakes are virtually featureless. The exception is some man-made cover sunk in the deeper areas.

To catch the shallow bass in thin water holding in heavy cover we use big noisy top water lures like Poe’s Jack Pot.

The Jack Pot is a heavy wood lure and that’s what you need to present the lure under those thick overhanging cypress limbs. This is no place for a crankbait or spinnerbait simple because there is no way to present the lure under the thick limbs.

We call it “crash casting” and maybe one out of five casts will hit the target. Just sling the lure low and fast with a sidearm cast.

This will work from now through mid September. The brighter colored lures like fire tiger work best or anyone of the many chartreuse and orange combinations.

If the bass refuse to hit the surface lures try a 3/4 ounce jig or peg a heavy slip sinker to the head of your favorite soft plastic lures.

If you don’t peg the sinker it will slide up your line and the lure will wind up several feet from the sinker.

The white perch bite will be fast and furious and it won’t last long. White perch are picky during the hotter months but when they feed they feed well. On lakes with piers, locate man-made brush piles in the deeper water.

If the bite is tough and you’re using tube or hair jigs scale your line and jig head size way down. You will get more strikes and catch more fish on 4 pound test line with a 1/64 ounce jig head when the bite is tough. If the jig bite is off show them the real thing, live shiners and use just enough weight to get the minnow down to the fish.