ledge fishing and grass question?

[slowride]

I understand that this time of year the bass are moving out to the ledges following shad. With that said im a little confused as to how the grass bite reflects the deep water legde bite. I mean i know some bass are always going to be shallow in the grass, but the majority are going to be on the ledges with the baitfish, right? I hear guys talking in the same sentense about the ledge bit and fishing the summer grass with frogs and topwater? Is this because bass are feeding in that grass close to the ledge there on? Or is this that just happens at dusk and dawn then moving back out on there ledge?? Any help would be great (Dave)....be safe

[stevec]

If you are talking about the grass in the backs of bays..those fish are resident fish for the most part..most dont travel from the back of a bay out to the ledges..they will usually only travel to the deeper spots within the bays when they need to.....the ledge fish are also usually resident fish that only move shallow to spawn..

[Todd2]

Good question. I always hear that bass head out to deeper waters (following the shad) after the spawn. But take Cedar Creek for example, didn't they kill all of the shad before impoundment? So the majority of bass are feeding on bluegills and shellcrackers right? So I would expect the bass to still be more shallow there than other places since bluegills spawn after the bass.

I know I've had some luck fishing shallow all summer around grass even in the middle of the day, I guess some bass would rather ambush frogs, snakes, and crayfish up in the grass rather than chase down shad out in deeper water.

I'd say if you can find grass close to deeper water that would be a gold mine.

Thats my take, maybe somebody will give us a better answer.

[Dave Stewart]

As said, some bass are resident in shallow water...with the grass coming back on Ky Lake, more of the shad are also staying shallow but majority still move to ledges and the majority of bass follow. The shallow bite is a backup or secondary bite to the ledge bite...on some days it is the better bite and can save your day on a slow ledge bite day. Also, there is grass now on the many of the ledges...especially down south of Paris...you can get a frog bite on the top of these ledges too on many days.

[fcfishman]

Follow Dave's advice. Just got back from 4 days on Kentucky. We caught a lot of small fish shallow, except for a few nice ones early in the day. After the sun popped up, we could catch 50 12" bass shallow but nothing larger. Moved to ledges, threw Shaky Head and 4" Yamamoto Green Pumpkin straight worm and did really well throughout the day. One guy in our group threw Fat Free Sexy shad and seemed to do well also.

[cast-a-way]

Cedar creek does have a population of shad. I do not know how they got there, but they are around. I have not seen as many this year yet.