Anglers are masters of adding “subseasons” to each new season of the calendar. Bass fishermen, particularly in the South, don’t usually measure spring from its official beginning around the 20th of March through its end in the middle of June. Instead, spring is measured in stages: the jerkbait-on-points, prespawn stage; the flipping and Senko stage; the sight- and bed-fishing stage; the mouth-of-the-bay, postspawn stage; the moving-offshore stage and cranking-deep-cover stage, etc. You get the idea. Spring is the season most revered by bass fishermen, and it is picked apart, almost week by week.
But as apparent as springtime movements of bass are, many tend to lump fall fishing into just that – fall fishing – even though the season is three months long, just like all the others. Maybe it’s because a good portion of anglers are putting rods and reels away in favor of bows, rifles and shotguns in the fall. And tournament seasons, whether professional or club level, are often winding down.
To dedicated bass anglers, however, fall offers a variety of unique fishing conditions and the chance for some of the fastest action of the year. Weather patterns change as drastically in the fall as they do during the spring. It’s a time of year when all fisheries, particularly highland reservoirs, go through big-time changes, and the fish, both predators and baitfish, have to constantly adjust to keep up. The best thing about fall fishing, as all bass anglers know, is at the right time, fishing with reaction-type lures, topwaters, spinnerbaits, crankbaits, etc., can be intense. Big catches can be reaped from small areas in a short amount of time when the fall bite gets “just right.” But it’s often a here-today, gone-tomorrow type of pattern. Knowing when to quit fishing on memories and change your tactics will keep you catching bass right up until winter takes its grip.
Early fall
Dedicated fall anglers may recognize early fall as beginning in mid-August. Though August often bears some of the most brutally hot weather of the year, lake and reservoir levels typically begin dropping a little by this time, either from dry summer heat or dam regulation. Shad also begin moving shallow at this time, and even though young shad from the spring hatch are small in early fall, bass find them quite tasty. This is a time that gives shallow-water lovers a little respite from the offshore doldrums of summertime. It’s still hot, but bass can be caught shallow.
Robert Walser of Lexington, N.C., is an angler apt to pick up a small crankbait in early fall. Walser, winner of the 2006 Wal-Mart Bass Fishing League All-American on the Connecticut River, has numerous All-American qualifications to his credit. That, in and of itself, is a feat.
Qualifying for the All-American is one of the toughest accomplishments in competitive bass fishing. It means being consistent enough in regular-season BFL competition to qualify for a year-end BFL Regional Championship, and these events are almost always held in October in lakes across the South and Midwest. An angler must finish in the top six in his or her respective division at the regional event to qualify for the All-American, so this means being versed in the autumn bass bite. Walser specializes in just that, so the October scheduling has been good to him over the years.
Walser breaks down the fall season by the changing water levels and falling water temperatures on his home lakes of High Rock and Kerr. In these lakes, bass will begin moving into a shallow-water fall pattern as early as mid-August with a summer’s worth of heavy rains, as was the case in 2006. “Bass will be looking for any reason to come up shallow, and if the water levels rise and you get some runoff in creeks, they’ll start moving up,” Walser said.
During this early period, prior to moving into primary creeks to gorge on shad, bass will orient around fairly shallow cover, including lay-downs, stumps and particularly boat docks on High Rock and Kerr, as well as rock banks, especially after a cold front. This is the time when Walser also likes to break out a shallow-running crankbait. He prefers a custom offering from Zoom (W.E.C. Custom Lures), a modified Bagley Killer Bee or a Bomber Model 6A. He sticks with brighter colors around dingy runoff, such as firetiger and chartreuse.
This is pinpoint, close-range combat in visible cover, and Walser gears up for such. He tends to favor a short casting rod, no longer than 6 feet, and a 5.1:1 Quantum PT650 reel spooled with 15-pound line.
“I’ll usually start with mono because it handles so well, and it’ll take the abuse,” Walser said of his line choice. “But when I’ve got those fish that are short-striking and coming loose, I’ll switch to fluorocarbon. That little less stretch in the line will compensate for short strikes.”
When the crankbait bite just isn’t suiting him, Walser will back it up with something creeping on the bottom. He usually keeps a flipping stick rigged with 20-pound fluorocarbon and a Zoom Baby Brush Hog or one of his own 1/4-ounce hand-tied jigs within reach.
“My jig skirts are tied on a weedless Weapon jighead with a rattle and tipped with a Zoom Super Chunk Jr.,” Walser said. He keeps his flipping sticks handy, even when crankbaiting, just so he can flip under a dock or into a likely looking brush pile to “check” on the bass. Some days, slow is where it’s at.
“I’ll fish that pattern until the water falls 6 or 7 feet and the water temperature gets down into the high 50s,” Walser said. “Then, I’ll start looking for fish in the backs of creeks, on flats and in pockets.”
Mid-fall
Bass will usually start moving onto the flats and back into creeks and pockets around mid-October in the Southeast, producing the kind of bassing many imagine when they think of “classic” fall fishing. This time of year brings shad migrating up feeder creeks in waves and hanging out in the deeper pools. Game fish of all sorts are going to follow this buffet – two narrow creek banks make for easy corralling and easy pickings. This is when you’re liable to see bass run shad clear up onto the bank as they aggressively make swipes through a shallow school. These bass aren’t picky. Like thugs in an alley, they’ll be hanging out near any piece of cover they can find and violently mug anything resembling a shad swimming by.
“I target visible cover, as well as shad activity in the creeks,” Walser said. “And I’ll throw to a piece of cover until I either get hung or until I’m convinced there isn’t a fish there.”
In this case, cover doesn’t have to be anything elaborate, because at times, pieces of cover are few and far between in a shallow creek, but shad are still everywhere. A stick jutting just 3 inches above the surface, for example, warrants a close inspection. “It’s like a guy told me a long time ago,” Walser said. “A bass’ eyeball isn’t much bigger than a pencil eraser. If that eyeball is covered, he thinks he’s hidden.”
Walser sticks with his balsa crankbaits in this situation, though he will occasionally throw a 1/4-ounce Rat-L-Trap Mini-Trap or a Luhr Jensen Sugar Shad. The Sugar Shad, Walser said, with its more round-nosed profile, offers bass a completely different sound than a standard Rat-L-Trap Mini-Trap. Sometimes, that sound is enough to drive them crazy.
Walser also noted a phenomenon that often occurs when bass are feeding on shad schools in shallow creeks. “A lot of the time, you can just catch them over mud banks,” Walser said. “You can fish the good places first – rock banks and stumps – and never get a bite. But then you work that 6A down a pure mud bank and catch one.”
The occurrence is a little puzzling, but Walser believes bass may simply be using the mud banks to search for a little crawfish dessert after a big shad feast. Trying to figure out the why is not necessarily important, however. When bass are on this mud-bank pattern, catching them can get really easy.
“I think crawfish are doing something on those mud banks that time of year, but I’m not sure what it is,” Walser said. “It does always seem to be an early to mid-fall pattern, though. And when you catch one over mud, you’re bound to catch another one. There’s no finessing to it – you’re literally throwing it
down that mud bank and winding it straight back in.”
Late fall
As fall begins winding down to make its winter progression, it’s still important not to overlook the shallow bite of an Indian summer. A few warm days, even as late as December, can bring bass back into the shallows. “When the water gets colder, I start fishing later in the day – from midmorning until dark,” Walser said. “If you get a warm spell, fish will go right back up into the shallows, and it doesn’t have to be as warm or as long as you think. A day or two of 50- to 52-degree weather will bring them up. It’s really nothing to catch bass from 2 feet of water in December.”
Shad are as large in late fall as they are at any time of year, so imitating them accordingly is important. Walser continues to target brush and stumps, but he might switch his lure offering from the small crankbait to a large, No. 5 willow-leaf spinnerbait – something with a large profile and plenty of flash.
Late in the season, shad will begin moving out of the creeks and offshore to suspend. This is where traditional winter tactics, such as vertically jigging bait schools with spoons, begin to come into play. But winter fishing, and the changes and progressions that go along with it, is another subject for another day.
Stumps, grass and topwater action
Ramie Colson Jr. of Cadiz, Ky. – National Guard pro on the Wal-Mart FLW Tour as well as a veteran of the BFL and Stren Series – has an enviable fall-fishing résumé. Many of his top finishes in events on his home lakes, Kentucky and Barkley, as well as Wheeler Lake and Lake Cumberland, have been in events from late September through November.
So, when it’s time to switch gears from summertime-fishing mode to fall-fishing mode, it’s no surprise the pro has developed a few systems for catching bass. During the early part of the season, it’s basically a four-variable equation: thick grass + stumps + shad + topwater lures = big catches of bass.
Kentucky Lake, on the south end in particular, has fairly thick grass growth on flats and in some bays. Beginning in late summer and early fall, bass will move in from their main-lake and river-channel ledges to chase baitfish moving into these grass beds. And within the grass beds, stumps seem to be the most consistent bait-holding areas.
“When I can find those stumps, I try to fish the outer edges of them with a zara Spook or a lucky craft Sammy early in the morning. Sometimes, I’ll use a buzzbait,” Colson said.
He prefers using the smaller, “junior” versions of these lures, and he throws them with a 7 1/2-foot G.Loomis medium-heavy rod and 17-pound monofilament for the most part.
“When the sun gets up, I drift even farther away from the river and fish the really heavy grass with a buzzbait or even a Rat-L-Trap,” Colson said. “That grass will be matted up pretty close to the surface. When it gets too thick, I have gone to braided line.
“Anybody can just go down the banks and fish grass in the fall and catch a few fish here and there, but keying on the stumps really seems to help catch more and bigger bass,” Colson said. “Stumps always hold baitfish within the grass.”
