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Summer 2023
REEHM RELIES ON RESIDENTS
While Sam Rayburn’s lush grass beds beckon to most anglers, Reehm generally ignores them. He’s a deep fish junkie for all of the reasons described above – not just their reliability, but also the fact that once he finds the schools and mega-schools, he often has them to himself. At the same time, he loathes to die on the vine, pushing his deep preference when the offshore bass simply won’t play nice, or when something else is likely to be substantially more productive.
“When offshore isn’t working , I’ll go super shallow, looking for the heaviest vegetation,” he said. “I’ll throw a swim jig to cover water and a topwater all day long.”
He’s changing zones, too, abandoning the main like with its feeding timetable, moving uplake or into a river, and pursuing resident fish. He’s changing forage, too. “Resident fish are typically not on a shad bite,” he said. “Those shad are out on the main lake with the bass you’d been chasing. They’re feeding on bluegill, so I really like a brim-colored Epic swim jig with a green pumpkin Yama Craw on the back.”
Unlike a turned-on school, these bass likely won’t be showing up in huge numbers in quick succession. Reehm said it’s a matter of grinding out bites, so he’s keying on distinct targets and focusing on shade, because in his part of the world it’s usually blazing hot.
“Any kind of overhang can be good – not just vegetation, but things like docks, too,” he added. “I’ll throw a Pop-R or a prop bait into those spots, usually not a walking bait because I’m not covering water. And a frog, too, especially in the middle of the day.”
Yamamoto Yama Craw
Clark Reehm
LIVESAY LIKES GIZZARD CHASERS
Just a few hours away from Reehm, veteran Lake Fork Guide and multiple-time Elite Series winner Lee Livesay said that he often sees it almost every summer: “Those big deep schools will break up. It happens real fast. I don’t know what it is, whether the oxygen gets weird or the pressure gets to them, but suddenly they’re just not there.”
When that happens, he too goes shallow, hitting key stretches in less than two-feet of water that all have one thing in common: The presence of shell on the bottom. That’s what seems to hold the bait that holds the fish.
“Those fish have pulled off of the deep schools that broke up and they’re eating big gizzard shad,” he said. “You’ll see a big group of them swim by your boat, and
Lee Livesay Photo: Bassmaster
then all of a sudden you may see one get blown up on a secondary point.”
He doesn’t necessarily catch a lot of double-digit giants this way, but each year it produces a healthy number of four- to seven-pounders, enough to make anyone smile,
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