It’s really nice summer weather and the hot summer days mean that the bass are much more likely to feed enthusiastically at dawn. It’s calm. There’s a bit of mist over the shallow water, and the bass are out in force, feeding on small fry and insects of all sorts. Now’s the time to try your hand at fly fishing. Above all, you’ll need a really careful approach because the bass are in just a few inches, or at most a foot or two, of water. They can sense your presence a mile off, so move like a heron. It’s best to take your time getting up close to the fish rather than risking a long, potentially splashy cast that again will send them hurrying from the area.

A floating line is probably what you’ll need, but what sort of fly? A fly that imitates any small fish is the sort of thing that you’ll be looking for – perhaps a minnow pattern. Or a big nymph pattern, something that roughly imitates all the bugs and insects that are scurrying around the margins. Whichever you choose, work your fly intelligently. Don’t just retrieve in a methodical sort of fashion, but go out of your way to put real-life energy into the fly, to fool the bass into believing that your creation of fur or feather is a real, live insect or fish. If you see any surface activity, you might even try a dry fly.

Choose something big and bushy, let it settle, and then just twitch it now and again so the bass thinks that it’s homing onto a stranded moth or beetle.

Whenever you’re looking for bass, look for cover. This is a perfect piece of bass pond. Look at the reeds, the weeds, the overhanging trees… just imagine all the small fish that are hiding out there, pulling bass in from more open parts of the lake.