fall bass fishing newbie needs some tips?
September 20, 2009
Never fished before in the fall. always just quit around mid august. but this year gonna try it out. What are some good techniques and lures? depths of water? ect.
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fall is my favorite time of year to use topwaters. fish are looking for mouthfuls to fatten up for winter and are actively feeding. weedbeds, using weedless frogs and buzzbaits are particularly rewarding for me as well as shallow flats or shallow points with a dropoff at the edge (where the fish will hang out until a school of bait cruises thru the shallows) where l have been doing extremely well with poppers and zara spooks.
keep your eye on flocks of grebes or other diving, fish eating birds until they get within casting range. they are usually following a school of shad or other baitfish.
crayfish are a good bait to use (or imitations) as these are high in fat and protein which the bass need.
In the Fall, the general forage a Bass consumes is at it’s "largest".
For this reason, larger Soft Plastic’s, Cranks & Rattle Traps, and 1/2-3/4 OZ Spinnerbait’s are a must.
If your in a region with snakes, toads & salamander’s now is a perfect time to use larger SP imitation’s.
Here are my preferred lures for Fall:
1. 1/2-3/4 OZ Rattle Trap type lures- When the water temp, (and Sun exposure), starts to drop/wane Bass begin eating more to store up calories for Winter. Most "bait-fish forage" at this time is AT LEAST 6-8" long all over the country. When you think of a Bass in the Fall, think "Bear".
What does a Bear do in the Fall?
Eat like a moose until they gorge themselves!
And what is Mr. Bass’s favorite food source? Bait-fish!
So any Larger Crank or Rattle Trap is a good "quick" lure to find BIG, active, Bass. In fact, Cranks ,in general, are good "Scouting lures" to find active fish…..
2. Larger Soft Plastic’s- 10" Worms, 8" Lizards and 6-8" Swim Bait’s- a 10" worm looks like a small snake or BIG leech; the huge lizard looks like a big Salamander & the action of a SP Swim Bait drives them nut’s…….nuf said!
3. Spinnerbait’s- Spinnerbait’s are another baitfish imitation. Make sure to try a variety of blades to see which one works best- (Double Willow-leaf blades most resemble a baitfish school…..hint hint).
Of course there are many other good lures………but I’d try these first.
Where will you generally FIND these hungry Bass?
Look for main lake point’s and deepwater weedbeds.
Hope this helps ITZ? Good luck!
Fall can be difficult because bass are in a transition period from deep summer haunts back into the shallows to feed up for winter. If its still warm in your area start with your drop offs and deepest part of points with crank baits and soft plastics or jigs. If you have already started cooling down as it has in the mountains of NC go shallow. I use a shallow square billed crank bait or Rat-L-Trap as a search bait. I will also go with a Zoom Trick worm Texas rigged in shallow water but Carolina rigged for those points and a jig works well in the shallows. Also in the fall you may find schools of bass chasing bait fish and that would also be a good use for the Rat-L-Trap. I love Fall fishing but it can be a bummer if the fish are back in forth during this transition and you have to chase them. I have some swim baits I have been saving for the shallow fall bite and I am going to wake them right under the surface. I went this morning and caught 2 bass shallow on a shaky head worm in about 3 feet of water.
If you have never gone fishing in the fall then you have been missing out! Fall (i think) is the best time to go fishing other than spring. In the fall (especially around mid-september) the bass will start gorging themselves for the coming winter. So pretty much anything goes really. If you know what the fish are eating then throw a lure that imitates that. Here a my home lake the large mouths feed heavily on the little shad, so i use small-medium sized shad colored crank baits. I usually see hoards of shad along the banks and weeds, so that’s where i fish, sometimes the action is non-stop! When i fish the river for small mouths, anything will work. Yesterday me, my girl friend, and my sisters boyfriend went fishing at the river. I used a jig, she used a pins minnow (baby bass colored), and he used a heddon torpedo, All three of us were catching fish left and right. Small mouths tend to be very aggressive to. Tubes, hellgrammites, medium sized crank baits (shad colored), and jigs seem to work quite well during the fall. But like i said, anything goes during the fall, the fish feed heavily and aggressively to fatten up for the winter. So anything in your tackle box might do the trick, Good luck!
Great advice by Fisher_King. Bass are greedy this time of year and will bite often and bite big bait. I was using large spinnerbaits the other day, retrieved just below the surface, and couldn’t keep 10 inchers off my line, which was great because I was just trying to get some kids their first bass. This was a large spinnerbait, but they didn’t care, they went for it anyway. Good luck out there.
The BIG spinner baits are KILLER for big bass in fall. Fish around submerged trees, stumps, branches, etc. with a big 1/2 OZ spinner bait. They will NAIL these things.
We have several articles on fall bass fishing at http://bassfishingmidwest.com.