September 14^th 2022

It’s that time of year in West Virginia when it seems like every tournament trail visits the 2,700-acre lake in search of the winning bag of smallmouth. With three major upcoming tournaments and two already in the rearview, how could we not talk about Summersville?

Why does every tournament trail visit Summersville Lake in September you might ask or wonder? If you’re not familiar with Summersville, every September generally the first or second week of the month the US Army Core of Engineers begins drawing the lake down to winter pool on the weekends. This is also in conjunction with the wildly popular white-water rafting on the Gauley River.

While white-water rafting might be popular so can fishing as the water begins to move and shift its way down. I am no expert on Summersville but certainly can tell you that when the water begins to move so do the fish and sometimes can result in the best bags of smallmouth you’ll see all year from Summersville. It can sometimes create a wild shallow bite or most of the time we see those fish start to move to the deeper stumps scattered across the lake, rock piles, or even can be found in the ditches where the water drains out.

West Virginia BASS Nation on Saturday held a fall Open on Summersville where winners Joe Carroll and Shawn Ferguson hauled in a limit of 10.31.

Trail of Dreams is slated to visit the fishery this Saturday, September 17th out of the Battle Run Campground. Last year while it wasn’t a big weight event, we saw a winning weight of 8-11 brought in by Kevin Newcomb and Josh Perdew. Trail of Dreams is still taking entries into the event and you can find all the information necessary on their Facebook page.

The Great Outdoors Marine is scheduled to host an event there on September 18th on Sunday the day after the Trail of Dreams wraps up. They will also be taking out of the Battle Run Campground and all information on how to sign-up and register can be found here on their Facebook page.

Finally, the weekend after on September 24th Marshall University has its 4th stop of the 2022 Marshall Bass Trail there as well. In 2021 we saw Marshall Bass Trail’s current AOY leaders Mike Samples and Lloyd Coleman took the victory there with a winning weight of 8.77. All information about that event can be found on their Facebook page here.

There has been a lot of stipulation over how good the fishing would be in 2022 after the full lake drawdown in the fall of 2021. I feel like the spring fishing was about as good as it ever has been before, but we have yet to see the fall. Last fall I can say the weights weren’t up to par compared to previous years in the fall, so it will be very interesting to see how well the lake is fishing and how much the drawdown affected it.