Summertime Ledge Fishing

In the hot dog days of summer deep water ledge fishing can be one of the most productive ways to fish. Here’s how I approach ledge fishing. First, let me say, I’m not crazy about ledge fishing in tournaments because you often have to bunch up to get to the best places, but if it’s a tournament where I can have a place pretty much to myself, I’ll give it a go. Otherwise, I look for something else where I can avoid the crowd. But if I’m not in a tournament and filming or fishing for fun, I love ledge fishing. The first thing I do is make sure I have quite a few rods rigged up (six or seven) – football jigs, a few deep diving crankbaits, Carolina rig, and a flutter spoon (something I can jerk up off the bottom and it will flutter down slowly). I generally will rig it with Sunline Sniper fluorocarbon, which is a dense line that cuts through the water well, and gets the bait down into the strike zone. Then I need to know how deep to get, which, in Texas is generally about 15-25 feet. Then I use my electronics to look for structure and schools. The Garmin Panoptix is an amazing tool for this type of fishing in that you can actually SEE schools of fish when you get close to them. So rig up a lot of rods on fluorocarbon line, determine the depth, use your electronics to find schools if possible, and get out there and have fun catching.