King Montgomery of Burke prepares to release a Tidal Potomac largemouth that was taken from main river lily pads -- a predominant pattern on the waterway every summer. Photo by Bruce Ingram

The time is mid- to late summer. Your vacation time is nigh, or you have the weekend off, and, by golly, you want to do some bass fishing. Well, here are three bass fishing destinations worth considering.

SMITH MOUNTAIN LAKE
Smith Mountain is the closest lake to my Botetourt County home, and I have seen it approached many ways during the dog days.

On a midsummer outing with noted guide Dale Wilson of Huddleston, I watched him use Texas-rigged plastic worms to yank largemouth bass out of deepwater brushpiles.

On a July trip with touring tournament pro Randy Howell, I observed him employing floating worms to lure largemouths to the surface.

And on another visit, my buddy and I put on the body of water well before dawn and did the old run-and-gun gambit past a series of docks on the main channel. We caught a number of nice bass before 9 a.m. and then called it a day as the heat and the skiers drove us from the lake.

Geoff Hill, a 27-year-old communications technician from Salem, is like many young hardcore bass anglers in that he is trying to make a name for himself at some of the major tournaments that come to within relatively close driving distance of where he lives. So Hill was understandably pleased when he finished 18th last October in a national tournament that was held on 20,000-acre Smith Mountain Lake.

The Salem resident minces no words when asked about how the bass action can be on this Roanoke/Lynchburg area impoundment in August.

"The late-summer period can be a very tough time to visit Smith Mountain," Hill said. "But there are two ways to approach the lake then. The first is to arrive at the lake at sunrise and stay until the boat traffic becomes heavy. This past August, for example, I did pretty well by fishing the lake from 6 to 11 in the morning. I caught a fair number of largemouths in the 5- to 6-pound range."

Hill says he did so by venturing well back into several tributaries. Specifically, he likes to run up No Name (also known as Magnum), Poplar Camp, Stanford creeks in the Blackwater arm, and Lynville, Beaverdam, Buff, and Grimes in the Roanoke River arm. But he is not just randomly running and gunning.

"That morning pattern is a very specific one," Hill said. "I have to go way back into the creeks, at least to the back third, and find stained or colored water and then have to locate laydowns or brush piles that are no more than 2 to 3 feet deep."

Once the Salem resident locates the right kind of wood at the right depth in the preferred water color, he has to select a bait that works. Most of the time, it is a 3/8-ounce white buzzbait, which he retrieves at a moderate pace. Hill also likes to cast the buzzer so that it runs across, by or into wood.

By 9 a.m. or so, the buzzbait bite often ceases, but the bass remain around the same cover. Hill continues to catch bass by switching to one of the homemade jigs that he makes, especially black and blue or green pumpkin models in the 3/8-ounce sizes. The angler flips or pitches the jigs, depending on water clarity and distance to the target. On one glorious outing, the Virginian landed a 6- and a 4-plus-pounder by implementing the jig pattern.

A third option for these morning bass involves Hill changing to a 1/2-ounce Hawg Caller tandem Colorado spinnerbait with a chartreuse and white skirt. Employing a high-speed baitcaster, Hill zips the blade bait across and by the downed wood. During the morning hours, usually well over 95 percent of the bass are largemouths.