Fall Fishing

Hey guys,

I just returned from a weekend in Central WI chasing bass. I struggled to get much going. Water temps were 60 on friday but down to 54 by Sunday.
We started shallow throwing lipless cranks, buzzbaits, and spinnerbaits. This was not working with the exception of a random pike. We tried throwing worms at docks, nothing.

Then we went to the outer weed edge with cranks and big swimbaits and when we found, them we would catch one every other cast, but then we would go cold for awhile then.

How do you start breaking down a lake in the fall? Did the cold front just turn them off?

Any tips to get the shallow fish to bite?

Anything will help out and fun to discuss.

-DEW

I key on the sharpest break ,abutting a shallow flat ,with good green weeds. A lot of fish seek warmer waters as they do in the spring,until the water temps even out.A of bait is shallow. Shallow bowl type lakes when water temps even out, I find fish start moving toward the basin of the lake.

Good point. I forgot to mention I was trying to stay in good green coontail weeds.

I was seeing that temp varied about 2 deg. from one side of the lake to the other.

Looking back, I wish I would have tried the ned rig. I have yet to try that.

In the fall and winter, the sun is towards the south,on a warm spell,and not to much wind ,your north end of the lake will be warmer.

They are just starting to move up to the shallows here in the Twin Cities. I’ve been finding them on outside weed edges near shallow weed flats and main lake points. If you can find rock even better. Football jigs, ned rigs or texas rigged plastics have been good for me deep, and square bill cranks have been good shallow. Also there are still fish in shallow cover (docks, trees) in my area. You definitely need to start slowing down this time of year as well. I’m expecting the bite to really turn on this next week or two if the weather stays somewhat stable.

Sounds like you were working shallow stuff(like me this weekend) we lost a lot of water temp this week, think this pulls fish off of shallow structure and onto a breakline-here in the cities we maybe lost 10 degrees of temp, we may not see that fast of a loss the rest of the year.

Yeah we started up shallow. I tried the buzzbait, probably too long. Looking back i wish i would have tried a chatterbait.

We are fishing 3 in our boat which makes it tough to do any off shore or outer weed fishing, as really only the front guy can have good placement.

Any tips on boat positioning and speeds when fishing jigs/t-tig outer weed edges?

Stay in deeper water and cast up to the weedline. Then slowly jig or drag it back to you. Look for irregularities in the weedline like points, pockets, anything that looks different on your electronics. Make sure you cast to those spots. Also any rock is a hot spot. Just make sure to work it slower the colder the water temps get.

Will have to try to do that. Appreciate the response.

this past weekend around Detroit Lakes, MN area. I fished Saturday with the water temp ranging from 46 in the bay type areas of the lake to 50 in the main part of the lake. I found the fish were holding in the warmer main part of the lake and caught them on a 1/2 oz. rattle trap retrieved slowly over the tops of coontail and cabbage in 3-8′ of water(the trap color was tennessee shad) You had to retrieve it throwing straight into shore and back out–not at an angle or parallel to shore. Just ticking it off the tops of the weeds. I also caught them on a 1/2 brown/purple jig with a Zoom Super Chunk trailer(bright blue) in 2-3′ of water. I used a swimming retrieve and found the fish located in and around the grass clumps on the sand flats. the water temp in these areas was 50 also. Another key was finding the long straight shorelines that had a pretty good break line at 4-10′ The lakes I fished the visibility was about 3 feet. hope this helps.

I went on Monday during the middle portion of the day and the water temp was 54. The pike are on a rampage. Still caught a few bass, biggest was 19 inches. Not much fight to the bass. Once hooked, it was like reeling in a wet shoe. I caught them in about 5 feet of water on a slow moving jerk bait. Areas around green weeds seem to hold the most fish.

When you are cranking, using a spinner or swimming a jig, I’ve always found it key to make sure it’s ticking the tops of the weeds. And a lot of times I get strikes right after I’ve gotten hung on a weed and I rip it off. Gets crushed many times after you free it. Way to get on em!