Witches shouldn’t be the only ones with warts this Halloween season. Bass anglers should have them too – Wiggle Warts, that is. So before you stock up on tiny candy bars, grab a handful of these fun-sized treats and trick shallow bass this fall.
“Wiggle Warts aren’t just a spring bait,” says South Carolina bass pro Davy Hite, a Bassmaster Classic champion and Bassmaster Angler of the Year. “I’ll throw ‘em to catch bass in the fall of the year too.”
The fall Wiggle Wart bass bite begins when days shorten, the sun hangs lower in the sky and water temperature falls. Depending on where in the country you fish, that might be sooner than later.
In southern reservoirs, largemouth and spotted bass feed in the fall on shallow spawning shad in the backs of creeks. Those fish will begin hitting Wiggle Warts once the water falls into the 70s.
In northern, natural lakes, largemouth bass feed this time of year on schooling bluegill and perch around shallow weeds. Those bass hit Wiggle Warts during the fall turnover, when cooler surface water sinks and pushes upward warmer water from the thermocline.
In northern rivers in the fall, smallmouth bass move to, and hold on, wood and rock in or near deeper downstream pools. Those fish will start biting a Wiggle Wart when air temps are in the upper 60′s and water temps have fallen to about 50 degrees.
When Hite throws a Wiggle Wart in southeastern reservoirs in the fall, he works it quite differently than he does when he fishes it in the spring. Rather than digging it into the bottom to imitate a crawfish, he’ll swim it in open water through a school of suspending fish.
“You either want to call those fish up or put a bait right where they are,” he says. When they won’t rise for a topwater bait, he’ll crank a Wiggle Wart through the school. If I can reach those fish with a Wiggle Wart, I can get bites.
The key, Hite says, is the Wiggle Wart’s erratic action. Because most crankbaits run very true and straight, he says, they elicit strikes best when bounced off visible cover, like a rock or laydown. But Wiggle Warts replicate that action without needing a stump or over cover to bump into.
“It moves left and right and then comes back to the center,” Hite explains.
“And that can get you some reaction bites from some fish that won’t bite those baits that run straight through the school – fish that really aren’t active and really aren’t in the feeding mode.”
Using 8- to 10-pound line on a 7- to 7-foot, 6-inch baitcasting rod, Hite fishes schooling, suspended bass in 10 to 16 feet. He will adjust his line size and type to reach the depth at which his sonar unit indicates the school of fish is suspending – lighter to get deeper and vice versa; fluorocarbon to get deeper, monofilament in shallow water.
“If those fish aren’t as deep and I don’t want to go past them – I want to have that bait run through them – I can use 15- even 20-pound monofilament and that bait’s not going to go as deep.”
A Wiggle Wart thrown on 12-pound-test fluorocarbon line will run about 14 to to 15 feet deep, he says.
Kentucky bass pro Terry Bolton, an 11-time Forest Wood Cup qualifier, goes shallow in the fall to throw a Wiggle Wart “where most people throw spinnerbaits.” Visible stumps are high-percentage targets.
“Make repeated casts to each side of the stump,” he says. “Sometimes it takes a few cast to aggravate the bass into striking.”
Bolton digs the Wiggle Wart’s bill into the bottom near a stump, causing it to carom off exposed roots. “I think this works because it is something they are not used to seeing and gets a reaction strike,” he says.
Bolton works his fall Wiggle Wart pattern on reservoirs like Kentucky Lake, beginning when water temps fall into the seventies. He throws the Wart on 17- to 20-pound monofilament line.
In stained water, Bolton throws a Fire Tiger pattern Wart. In clear water, he opts for chrome and shad patterns. He’ll throw crawfish patterns in both stained and clear water.
In the natural lakes of the Upper Midwest, the same Wiggle Warts that work in the spring to imitate crawdads work in the fall to imitate bluegills and perch.
“The bass are mostly eating bluegills, but most of those crayfish-pattern Wiggle Warts, especially the lighter ones, do a really good job of imitating bluegills,” says Rapala pro-staffer Seth Feider, a leading Bassmaster Northern Opens angler. “I’ve had success with the yellows, the oranges and the browns.”
In the fall, however, you don’t fish them slowly or grind them into rocky bottoms. Instead, you fish them as fast as you can parallel to and over green vegetation.
“As the afternoon sun warms shallow water, bass will follow baitfish into and around green weeds,” Feider explains. “Cast a Wiggle Wart over submerged weeds with a foot or two or two water over them. Rip your treble hooks free if and when they collide with weed tops.”
He’s got a great tip for keeping your hooks free of grass.
“As you get to fishing it a bit, you’ll actually feel the weeds coming before your bait hits ‘em – you’ll feel that crankbait tighten up on the wobble and know your line’s going over some grass – so you can anticipate and start your rip before your bait gets hung in the grass,” he says. “It will come through a lot better.”
On his home waters in Minnesota, Feider finds good green weeds in 8- to 10-feet of water. In that zone he throws Wiggle Warts on 20- to 30-pound Sufix 832 camo braid to holes in the weeds, inside turns and steep breaks. He uses a 6-foot, 6-inch medium-heavy baitcasting rod paired with a 6.3:1 gear-ratio baitcasting reel.
Feider’s fall Wiggle Wart pattern is most effective on natural lakes in the Upper Midwest during the fall turn-over period. The turn-over occurs when the lake’s upper layer of water, cooled by colder overnight air temps, becomes heavier than the water below it and sinks. As it falls, the warmer water in the thermocline below rises to the top, essentially swapping places.
Depending weather conditions and where you are in the northern region, the fall turnover can take ten to 14 days. After it’s complete, bass will move back to their deep wintering haunts.
Fall is one of the best times to catch a trophy river smallmouth in the Upper Midwest. And a Wiggle Wart is one of the best baits to catch it on.
“The Original Wiggle Wart is a must-have for river smallmouths migrating toward wintering habitat in fall, when they reach peak aggressiveness for the year,” wrote In-Fisherman magazine’s Matt Straw, in a May 22, 2012 edition.
Shorter days and cooling water ring a dinner bell for river smallies, as they feed up to prepare for their winter dormancy. At this time, they instinctively move to deeper, downstream pools. Somehow they know that the water above a dam is less likely to fall low enough to strand them high and dry
On northern rivers in the Upper Midwest, start throwing crawfish-pattern Wiggle Warts on October afternoons when air temps are in the upper 60′s and water temps have fallen to about 50 degrees. Work your way downstream, casting to visible cover and keeping and eye on your electronics for holes and rock piles. Cover and structure with access to nearby deep water is best.
On some sections of the upper Missisissippi River, it’ not uncommon to catch a couple dozen fat smallies on this pattern this time of year. Actively feeding smallies can’t seem to resist the Wiggle Wart’s unique action.
“This bait has the most erratic side-to-side action of any crank I’ve ever fished with,” Straw wrote.
Although spring Wiggle Wart fishing in The Ozarks is more heralded, bass will bite a Wiggle Wart in cool water there whether the trees are sprouting buds or dropping leaves. The fall bite turns on there as water temps fall to about 55 degrees and bass begin moving from their deep summer haunts to follow schools of shad into the backs of creeks.
Depending on nighttime air temps, this bite lasts two to four weeks, turning off when water temps hit about 48 degrees. Target rocky main-lake banks, rock-strewn transition banks, secondary points in the creeks and channel-swing banks, points near channel swings. Banks that transition to pea gravel or chunk rock are often best.
