if you’re at an area with a lot of docks and you should look for the ones that have transitions from shallow to deep with a hard bottom. Some of the docks will have grass patches around them. These types of docks will have crawdad and bait fish populations around them also and should be the better docks for bass fishing. other good places are ledges and rock piles. They are also great places that can hold lots of crawdads and bait fish. These places are also great for largemouth bass to push shad schools against causing them to disperse and make an easy meal. Just remember that largemouth are schooled up and once you find one of these places they are using, it can be a real hot spot. Be sure not to leave after catching one bass. Schools will continue to use these places for trapping shad all day long. Jigs and crank baits are always a good bet around the rock pile and ledges, and also the hard bottoms around the docks. also dropshotting and don’t forget that the swimbaits start coming into play and become stronger as we head into winter and the multi-rig could possibly be on fire! important things to keep in mind in the late fall/ winter bass fishing is continually keeping up with the water temperature and knowing the forage base in each lake and their movements in the fall, because the bass will be sure to follow. locate all shallow water adjacent to deep water and location of remaining grass beds and patches of which will be continually breaking down as the water cools and we head toward winter. in the winter when the water cools from fall temperatures, the bass will stay active until the water reaches low 50’s then the metabolism slows and they don’t feed as actively. remember to match colors and size of forage when choosing a lure. This is always a good starting point. during the fall in the northern part of the west, remember that weather fronts can be more drastic which could cause large water temperature drops into the winter months. also with the barometer falling it will generally push the bass from the shallows into the deeper water, or they will stay put and hold tight to cover. So you will need to fish tighter to cover and check the deeper water. in addition slow down your retrieve. Sometimes you will need to scale down your bait size.
Issue 5
October 2012
Here are some baits I like to fish at Clear Lake during this time of year - lipless crank baits such as a rat-l-trap and luck Craft lV’s in shad colors, deep diving crankbaits like deep little n’s and dd22s in shad and crawdad colors and a multi-rig. i like roboworms in Folkestad Special and Maverick’s tami’s rock ‘n roller in Mangler color. i like Huddleston, trash Fish and triple trout swimbaits and Zara Spooks, Gun Fish and Frogs for topwater. The jigs i would suggest are a 3/8-oz or ½-oz, football head in browns, greens, and purples. The delta follows the same basic fall/winter transitions except you have to deal with incoming and outgoing tides. Stay away from the dead end sloughs which are good in the spring. once again, find shallows next to deep water, grass patches and so forth. The bass start moving more toward the current areas and more toward main channels. The best bites will be at the time the tide changes and as long as there is moving water. The bass should be catchable. The slack times are generally slow. This is always typical throughout the year. California delta Baits i like are surface lures like buzzbaits and wake baits which can be great this time of year with a slow steady retrieve, walking baits such as Spooks, Gun Fish, Vixens, and Frogs and also crankbaits around current edges in red and oranges. rat-l-traps and lVs are good around grass beds and edges of current in red and shad colors. on drop off edges at low tides when the bass move to the deeper edges, jigs are a good bet in reds, blacks, orange, browns, and purple colors. roboworm, Power Worms, Maverick’s tami’s rock ‘n roller are recommended worms and don’t forget to try curl tails. Pitch in holes and grass in hyacinth, using up to 1 ½-oz sinker pinched off with a bobber stopper with a Paycheck skirt with a sweet beaver.
Tami Curtis is a tournament bass angler sponsored by Daiwa.
She is the producer of Fish’n 4 FUN TV Show and www.TCsportsREPORT.com
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