#river bass – Fishing on Foot

Summer Creek Bass Fishing

Mid-summer making lake-fishing tough? Head for a creek for hot bass action.

Mid-summer fishing can create challenges, especially for fishing without a boat. Many fish in lakes and ponds move to deeper areas, often well out of reach. At the same time, lake shores and pond banks commonly get more overgrown, creating challenges for accessing spots and casting.

Don’t despair or put away your fishing gear, though. Mid-summer can be a fabulous time to wade creeks and small rivers to fish for various black bass species, plus whatever else bites. The cooler water feels great on a hot day, and the fish tend to feed actively and remain in easy reach for Fishing on Foot.

I’ve paid extra attention to stream opportunities over the past couple of summers because I have been pursuing the Georgia Bass Slam, and several species I’ve been after mostly live in creeks and small rivers. An example is the Bartram’s bass in the picture above.

Depending on where you live, streams might hold smallmouth bass, spotted bass, largemouth bass or regional species like shoal bass or Guadalupe bass. Unless you live in pure trout country, (or in a coastal area where silty bottoms, alligators or other factors take wading out of the equation), smaller streams around you probably provide opportunities for wading and bass fishing.

Rivers & Creek Access

Because I like to wade-fish during summer, I mostly look for creeks and small rivers that have shallow sections. North Georgia, where I live, has a lot of rocky tumbling streams , so that makes it easy.

Several of Georgia’s bass species only live in parts of specific watersheds, so that has caused me to do a lot of Google Maps searching, following stream paths and looking for parks, greenways, canoe launches, national forests areas, etc. that provide public access and then switching to the satellite view to see what the stream looks like.

A few areas are busts. The bank is steeper and more overgrown than I could tell; it’s all too deep to wade; or it simply doesn’t look like good fish habitat. That said, I’ve been impressed by the number of quality fishing spots I’ve found, including some that aren’t far from home and that I hadn’t even thought about trying on the past.

It’s worth noting than in addition to legitimate, indisputable creeks, some waterways that would be better described as ditches can provide surprising opportunities. From the bank of a roadside ditch, try throwing out a little topwater lure and see what happens.

Creek Lures

I keep my lure selection small for this type of fishing, carrying a box or two that can go in a shirt pocket and maybe a few packages of soft plastic lures.

Small topwater lures, like Tiny Torpedoes, Zara Puppies and Crickhopper Poppers, are always in the mix and usually my starting lures. I’ll also carry a few small crankbaits, usually including a Rebel Crawfish or two, and a couple of minnow lures.

For plastics, I like to carry some small natural craw imitations like a Rebel LIVEflex Creek Craw and at a package of 4-inch YUM Dingers.

With that simple selection, I have everything I need for some fun and productive summer fishing.

Qualifying Shoal Bass

I recently blogged about getting my Georgia Bass Slam started for 2026 with a Bartrams bass and ended the blog wondering what species would be next.

The answer came a couple of days ago in the form of a chunky shoal bass. That was an extra good one to notch from my standpoint because of the statewide minimum size for the species. Bass must be of legal size, if a minimum size exists, for bass slam qualification, and the minimum size for shoal bass is 15 inches. That’s not a giant, but it’s a quality fish and not always simple to come by.

My qualifying shoal bass was 16 inches long and probably weighed around 2 1/2 pounds. I also caught a smaller one of maybe 13 inches from the same area. I was fishing a creek in the Upper Chattahoochee River watershed and actually thought I might find a Chattahoochee bass.

Interestingly, I caught the first shoal bass on a tiny crappie jig. I was still rigged up from an earlier crappie trip when I arrived and had a tandem rig of a Bobby Garland Mayfly and Itty Bit Mayfly. The fish hit the Itty Bit version, which is only 1.25 inches long.

Ironically, the smaller shoal bass was on the same rig, but it hit the larger of the two jigs!

Watch for a short video from that afternoon on Fishing on Foot YouTube!

New Ultra-Finesse Jig from Rebel Lures

New jigs are a great fit for multi-species creek fishing.

My most recent post focused on a few recent catches, but I failed to note that I caught the Bartrams bass, redbreast and shoal bass on the same kind of jig — the new Ultra-Finesse Jig from Rebel Lures.

The purpose of both short afternoon fishing trips was to get photos of the new jigs for my job. Of course I had to try them out, though, and I was impressed by the results of my short test runs — not just because I caught fish, either. I fished a few versions and was super impressed with how they looked and moved in the water.

The Ultra-Finesse Jig is built with a Keg Head Jig with a small collar added to help secure a silicone finesse skirt, and comes pre-rigged with a LIVEflex soft plastic body.

The buoyant trailers, when combined with the Keg Head design, really stand up nicely, helping fish find the bait. The same buoyancy slows the jig’s sink rate, adding an extra measure of finesse.

The jigs come in “Snack Packs,” with two jigs rigged with different LIVEflex baits and a spare of each of the soft plastics. All include one jig rigged with a Creek Craw. The second is either a Cata Crawler, which is a small Ned-style worm, or a Shore Shiner, which is a small, narrow swimbait.

I’ve been fishing with LIVEflex baits since the first samples came out, and they play an important role in my creek game. The Ultra-Finesse Jig is a natural progression for me, and having fished them just a tiny bit now, I’m eager to do a lot more!

Bartrams bass on Rebel Ultra-Finesse Jig

Start of 2026 Georgia Bass Slam

Species No 1 for this year’s Georgia Bass Slam was a Bartrams bass.

This afternoon I caught my first fish of this year that will qualify toward the Georgia Bass Slam: a 10 1/2-inch Bartrams bass. Of course, I caught it Fishing on Foot.

Last year I set a goal on New Year’s Day to achieve the Slam — all Fishing on Foot and on public land. The minimum number of species for achieving the Georgia Bass Slam is five, and I ended up catching seven in 2025.

I hadn’t stated that goal this year, and I still might not plan fishing trips around Slam needs as much this time around. I probably knew I’d end up seeking it, though, and I am pretty excited to have one species notched.

The Bartrams is admittedly among the easiest for me. I pursue them and catch some pretty much every year without any thought of the Bass Slam. It’s still fun to get this year’s effort underway.

Looking at all species caught — not just Georgia Bass Slam qualifying fish, today’s Bartrams bass was species seven for me, and a redbreast sunfish was number eight. I’ve actually caught largemouth, smallmouth and spotted bass this years, but they came from Alabama and Tennessee, so I still need all of those for the Slam.

What bass species will come next?