Home Forums Fishing Freshwater Fall Bass Fishing

I think I stored my boat too soon.....Friday, 40+ fish topped by a 5 and 6.5 pound fish. Rattletrap and Beaver on 1/2 oz footballs. Rattletrap fish came out of 2-4 ft. of water.Water temp 48.

These fish were fired up pretty good,and one shallow bay produced about 15 fish on the Trap.Looks like it's peaking right about now but have to get ready for deer season later this month. If we stay ice free we should be able to get on them in November and into December as well.

But you guys up north who still have boats in the water.....get out there! If you have the deer hunting out of the way!

Sounds like they are ON! I have been after them as well but the water temp is still to warm around 70. They are taking buzz baits and spinnerbaiting at night. Cranking a DT6 and swim baits and swim jigs in the day and an occasional spook fish over shallow wood. GOD I LOVE IT! Only 5 - 15 a trip right now but December is usually better.

Used to when dear season opened I had the lake to myself but that is no longer the case. There's a bunch of winter tournaments now, which sux but it beats sitting on the couch.

Keep smoke'n em up there.

Seal Billy: Lakes here are EMPTY! Had the whole place to ourselves...

On the bigger lakes guys are waking up to fishing this late but the lakes are still empty.Hard core guys only are out there.

They are shallow right now. It won't last much longer; they will migrate to winter areas and bunch up. Last year, day after Christmas we caught 60. Hit the right spot you can do 30 pounds for 6 fish easily;maybe better.

Later, we throw Silver Buddy's, Gitzits,hair jigs,and 3/4 oz footballs with Smallie Beavers when water temps hit mid 30's to low 40's.

Water is still warm here so swimbaits and deep cranking are doing the trick. Tournament winner yesterday at a pro-am caught them cranking and two best fish were a 9 and a 10 for 34 lbs for 5 fish.

coyote I hate you California guys....

Your fish are bigger than ours!

Keitek swim baits were murder here for me through Labor Day. Not doing anything on them now. In the cold water a crankbait with tight wobble does better here.Shallow they love the Trap. Deep, it will be blade baits here on out;down to 25-30 ft.

We do the silver buddies and hair jigs in winter also. A friend of mine won a tournament on that keitek 2.5 model. You can't reel them to slow for the tail not to work. Like em I do. Very expensive though. I gotta start using football jigs more. I quit bass fishing cause I got burned out on tournament fishing a few years ago and have just started fishing for them again. Learning a few newer techniques, flick shake, swimming a jig which I just fish like a spinnerbait. I sure missed it.

Seal Billy: Tournaments will burn you out. But they are a lot of fun. I do a few each season.

Star jigs for the season were the Mop Jig football,3/4 oz on deep structure. I move it pretty quick,staying in contact with the structure,like a crank bait.

The HackAttack 3/4 oz was an awesome producer in any heavy grass, shallow, or down to 12-15 feet on grass. On heavy braid it digs into grass.I slide it in the grass until it hangs up, then rip it....hard. They react and slam it.

I like the gambler flapp'n shad with the tail cut like a speed craw over grass. It works like a weedless buzz bait. Try it, it skips well also so docks and low hanging limbs are accessible. We don't have much grass here cause the water levels fluctuate so much, 60 vertical feet in some lakes. But the lakes that have grass are very fun to fish and the population of big bluegills are better. Anyways it's a fun bait to fish in grassy lakes.

sealbilly I will remember that. Thanks!

Last night 20.5 pounds 4 largemouth and one smallmouth in my buddy's boat, I had to work today so I didn't care a thing about staying out till 3 or 4. Wished I had now.

I hear night fishing is a fact of life down South.

Nice bag!

Yeah it's awesome. Daytime fish are hard to come by but once the sun goes down they become hungry, bigger and mean as a dog $hiting tacks.

What are your summer water temp like up there? Ours are in the mid 90s and I have even seen it 99 once. That's why we fish at night, this time of year at night the lake is empty nobody but a couple of guys fishing at night and I know most of them. It's tough to slow roll a spinnerbait while it's frosting on your boat but the smallmouth are unreal strong this time of year.

Also what are your lakes like? I fish hill land and highland reservoirs. Deep clear and tough most of the time. Douglas is the best but it's not so clear.

Our lakes are probably what you'd call clear but really a lot are more stained.Some are deep with lots of rock structure;some are shallow and weedy since they are actually impoundments that were dammed in the 1800's.

My favorite is 5500 acres and loaded with humps,submerged points,and depths to 60 feet or so. It also has broad shallow areas. It has weed beds to about 12-15 ft. But has short grass as deep as 22 ft.

Places like Sebago (25,000 acres) and Winnie in NH (40,000 acres) have depths over 100 ft. Both are trout/salmon fisheries as well. And then of course there is Champlain which is more like one of the Great Lakes. It's huge.

I don't recall any temps over 80 this year and most main lakes were about 79 degrees;protected shallows can hit over 80 mid summer. All the deep lakes I was on this year had a thermocline forming at 21-22 ft.

I think you would find a lot of our lakes similar to your highland reservoirs.

Sounds like our lakes except our water levels fluctuate a lot. That's why most of them don't have grass. Deep rocky structure AND shallow grass! JACKPOT!

Went out for an hour or so Sunday evening before sunset. Only one strike and it was maybe a 9" largemouth. Beautiful day to be out, but the fish just weren't doing anything. Mepps, Blue Fox, Rapala, spinnerbaits.. nada except the 1 small guy on a white Mepps.

Calhoun: Do you know water temp by chance?

This time of year,with water temps falling,days shortening,active feeding will come in spurts. In some lakes in the morning, in others the afternoons. In our lakes, by 4 PM it is over(they may activate at night but I'm not there then so don't know).

Point being feeding activity will be in short windows. Last week when we had 40+ fish, the majority came from app. early morning until 11-12. Then we had to scratch them out with slow baits.

If spinnerbaits and rattletraps(horizontal presentations) don't work, try a tube bait or smallie beaver on a 1/4-3/8 football. Plastics should be subtle with not much action....at least that works here.

If I catch small fish in an area, I leave.Whatever small fish are doing,big fish are generally doing something else.

Or fish different type of cover, structure, depth or area.

This stuff is killing my bank account! 105 bucks at bass pro and all I went for was a baitcaster handle. The bearings wore all the way through the knobbs on my old 1600 promax. I have been cranking off and on with it since the 90s, it deserves a a picture on the wall of fame! I saw a Pflueger president limited I had to have and bill norman crankbaits were on sale for 1.99! How do you resist that?

Don't know the water temp, was fishing from shore. Water was pretty cold tho, that was one cold little bass.

Probably 50-ish. That feels cold.

SealBilly none of this is cheap is it?