When summer boat traffic turns Lake Conroe into a washing machine by day, some of the best bass fishing begins after dark.

Lake Conroe is one of the most popular lakes in Texas for both fishing and water skiing, so it takes a beating throughout the summer. Most fishermen know the lake generally fishes better during the week, when boat traffic is lighter and the bass are not nearly as spooky and unsettled as they become on busy weekends.

One way to work around that weekend traffic and still catch fish is to start early. I try to run half-day morning trips as often as possible on weekends, and a 6:00 a.m. start has proven ideal. By then there is enough light to fish comfortably, and boat traffic usually stays light until around 10:30. Even after that, things often remain manageable until about noon.

Still, when summer settles in for good, the best answer may not be early morning.

It may be nighttime.

Opinions on Lake Conroe’s black bass fishing vary a good deal from angler to angler. A fisherman who understands his graph and knows how to locate underwater structure such as roadbeds, humps, creek channels, and tank dams will tell you the lake fishes very well. A newcomer without those skills might come away convinced there is not a bass in the whole reservoir.

That is because Conroe is not a shoreline lake this time of year.

On some lakes, like Livingston, a man can work shoreline cover year-round and catch bass consistently. Conroe is different in late summer. During this period, most of the black bass are holding on deeper structure, generally in 15 to 28 feet of water. That means working boat docks, shallow stumps, and other bank-related cover is usually less productive during the day than fishing those deeper offshore areas.

But when darkness falls, the whole lake changes character.

If you are fishing at night under a half moon or better, that shallow shoreline structure suddenly becomes the place to be. Once the sun goes down, the water in the shallows begins to cool. By the early morning hours, those areas may be three to six degrees cooler than they were during the day. The shad move into that cooler water, and the bass follow right behind them.

That is the nighttime shift worth paying attention to.

Some of the best shallow targets after dark are lighted piers and boat docks. The lights draw in shad and minnows, and bass will often set up in the shadows nearby, using darkness like an ambush point. The bait gathers in the glow, and the predators sit just outside it, waiting.

Bass are built for that kind of hunting.

A black bass has a sensory system running along each side of its body, the lateral line, and it allows the fish to detect movement and vibration in the water. I like to think of it as “the force” the fish uses to locate prey. Whether there is bright moonlight or almost no light at all, bass can still find bait remarkably well. A bass can probably locate a black worm on a moonless night almost as easily as it can in broad daylight.

That is why vibration matters so much in night fishing.

The best baits after dark are usually the ones that put off a strong, attractive vibration. Texas-rigged worms have long been a favorite night bait, and for good reason. They are dependable, easy for bass to track, and effective around the kind of shallow cover that produces after dark.

Surface baits are also deadly at night.

A black Jitterbug is a true classic and has been taking bass after dark for decades. Pop-Rs and Zara Spooks are two other topwaters that can draw explosive strikes on summer nights. There is something about a bass blasting a surface bait in the dark that gets a man’s attention in a hurry.

August is one of the better months for this kind of fishing on Conroe. By then, daytime heat has driven a lot of fish into predictable summer patterns, and the nighttime movement into the shallows can be dependable. Another advantage is that many marinas around the lake are already positioned near prime nighttime areas. In a lot of cases, you may not even need to crank the big motor.

That makes for a pretty fine summer trip.

When the daytime traffic gets heavy and the sun bakes the lake, do not assume the bass have quit biting. They may just be waiting on the sun to go down. On Lake Conroe, night fishing can turn a tough summer pattern into a very manageable one, especially around lighted docks, shallow feeding lanes, and cooler nighttime water.

Sometimes the smartest thing a bass fisherman can do in August is sleep late, launch late, and let the lake settle down before making his move.

Good luck, and good fishing.