TARGETING BAIT
Since bass are looking for more food and willing to travel to find some, finding baitfish can greatly help improve your day.
Baitfish also enjoy the cooler water temps and will move shallow or to the backs of creeks and coves. Finding bait, with fish actively feeding is game on! Do your best to match the hatch so to speak, fishing lures that mimic the bait you have located by color, size and movements will aid in more bites. Lipless crankbaits in the fall, fished in a yo-yo fashion is a hard presentation to beat.
FALL TURNOVER
One of the most misunderstood and feared environmental phenomena that occurs in fall is “fall turnover”. To put in simple terms, this is when the bottom layer of a lake mixes with the upper layer.
Not all lakes experience this, it usually occurs in still lakes that experience a lack of wind.
Also, turnover usually only lasts two to three days and doesn’t affect fish all that much. During this time, the fish may experience “lock-jaw”, if they haven’t quite adapted to the cooling water temperatures, before turnover happens.
The mid-depth to deeper holding fish are the ones who are affected the most.
INCREASED ACTIVITY
With bass being on the more active side, this is the time of year to pick up the faster moving baits first. Like I mentioned earlier, lipless crankbaits, jerkbaits and spinnerbaits are all good this time of year.
Keep in mind, fall is the other big bass season, tossing around a swimbait is probably my number one choice. A swimbait in the color pattern of your local baitfish will be the closest matching bait to the real thing, swims like a fish (I’d hope!) and size, well, I think they say “big bait, big fish”. I’ll leave the size option up to you, just remember – small baits that are more similar to the actual size of baitfish also catch giant bass.
Cooling temperatures are a nice change of pace for not only you, but the fish as well. Remember, temperature is the key in fall. Move around and fish different structure as well as getting baits to different depths to find fish. If you stumble on baitfish, even better.
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