Working the deep humps is a favored tactic for successful bass tournament anglers during this time of the year. As summer patterns evolve, many largemouth fishermen key on midlake humps, long, sloping points that fall into deep water and the edge lines of drops into deep water in the main Catawba River channel.

One effective way to explore these areas to determine if fish are there is to work across the structure with your electric motor, dragging a bottom bumper along. One successful angler I know relies on a small watermelon-color finesse worm on a Carolina rig. He uses the trolling motor to move along, bumping the rig along the bottom in a potentially productive area. It allows him to cover a lot of ground when searching for fish in practice days before a tournament. Once he catches a fish, he will then work the area in more traditional ways to pinpoint the location of the fish. Thus, on tournament day, he has the position pinpointed and can cast to a specific target.

This tactic works great for tournament fishermen, but it works just fine for the rest of us, too. The biggest difference is if you're not planning a tournament trip in the immediate future, you're not saving the fish for a later date.

Another key to success on Lake Wylie in hot weather, right on through August and into September, is versatility in your choice of structure to fish and lure presentation. Move to new structures or to different parts of the lake if you're not getting bites. Try a variety of lures and tactics with a dose of patience and persistence. Generally, sometime during the course of the day you'll likely hit a productive pattern.

While there's ample room in the South Carolina section of the lake to spend a day, I confess to purchasing an out-of-state North Carolina fishing license if I'm planning on fishing here more than a couple of days. It simply allows me the freedom to move around, especially when I get on a strong pattern. Again, that's not a prerequisite for success, but many largemouth bass fishermen I know do exactly that. It does open up much more of the lake for fishing.

Some fishermen will also choose to work mostly shallow-water areas during the course of the day. With decent water color and taking advantage of shady banks, you can orient your fishing to shallow-water cover with some degree of success.

There are many shallow-water spots with good stumpy or brushy cover in the larger creeks, such as both Little and Big Allison creeks, on the lower end of the lake. Shallow stumps, logs, brush and even steep, sloping shorelines with rock and wood will produce. I have enjoyed some excellent shallow-water fishing on those unusual days when we have cloud cover or a light rain during July.

Another excellent July and summer-long tactic is to fish the deep-water crappie beds in the lake. There are scads of brushpiles, originally placed for crappie, in this very productive crappie-fishing lake that are prime targets for holding largemouth bass from this time of the year right on through fall.

You can get lucky and spot the brushpiles with your graph as you motor along, or if you've been here before, you may recall seeing crappie anglers working these places at other times of the year. Once you get close, you can find them with your graph. Try snaking a Texas-rigged plastic worm through them.