With the cooling water temps of the late fall upon us, the bass are on the move. Many of the food sources that deepwater bass rely on day-to-day to live have migrated shallower and the bass will be right behind them.
Without a food source the bass will not be able to survive in their deep haunts leaving them no choice, but to move shallow with the food source that they were targeting in the summer. Once in the shallows their stay may not be long as the changing environment of cooler winter waters will help move them deeper again in the water column.
BUZZBAITS FOR LATE FALL BASS FISHING
Not only in the air temperatures have dropped; but the water as well. This makes it prime time to be throwing a buzzbait. Ask any bass fishermen it is just fun to see the bass come up topside to grab your bait as it gurgles its way back to the boat.
A buzzbait is a good search bait for locating nomad bass.
Style of buzzbaits can vary widely. There is every combination under the sun –single blades, double blades and even tri-blades. Try different combinations and let the bass tell you what option they want. As you will soon find out one day, it may be one bait; but the next it may be another.
Adding a trailer will help keep a buzzbait on top. Many times, I will use a 6-inch Mister Twister Grub, in either white or chartreuse. When I need to get the buzzer on top fast, I will use a Big Bite Jerk Bait or a Big Bite Cane Thumper as my trailer option.
Not only can I get the bait on the surface fast; but it allows me to slow down my retrieve to help get more strikes. This is key when the bass are in in-between moods.
Braided line is a good choice for buzzbaits, because it floats and will help you get your bait up on the surface faster than when using a mono or fluorocarbon line choice.
POPPERS, WALKERS AND CHUGGERS FOR LATE FALL BASS FISHING
On the occasions when the bite is slow and the bass will not come up and commit to a moving buzzbait over their heads, other topwater lures are an option.
Good choices are poppers, walkers, and chuggers just to name a few. As always, the bass will tell you which one they prefer. One day, I found the bass were following a walking bait, but would not strike the bait. When I changed to a popping bait, they would annihilate it. Sound seemed to be the trigger that they wanted that day, not movement.
I like to throw topwater lures on braided line and if needed, I add a mono leader. I add the mono when I am fishing in clear water conditions or if the bait is getting tangled in the braid as it lays on the top of the water.
I never use a fluorocarbon leader as fluorocarbon line sinks and this will take action out of your topwater bait. The combination that I use the most is 30-lb braid and either 15- or 20-lb mono.
MOVING BAITS FOR LATE FALL BASS FISHING
In moving baits, I am including rattle baits, spinnerbaits, ChatterBaits and swimbaits. When the bass won’t come up to bite up on top, you will have to go subsurface to catch them and that is where the moving bait category will go to work.
When it comes to rattle baits, I throw a Spro Aruku Sha. This swims with a nose-down attitude, resulting in more bites and less hang-ups. The key to throwing an Aruku Shad is to make your cast and have your bait make contact with the weeds or the cover you are fishing on its way back to the boat, while giving your rod a quick jerk (just like you are setting the hook) to get the bait to break free and on its way swimming again. Often, the strike will happen when the lure breaks free.
I fish this on a 7’6” pitching stick with a 6:3-1 speed baitcaster that is spooled with 15-lb Sunline Assassin fluorocarbon line, because of the low stretch factor. It is easier to get the bait free and swimming again more times with fluorocarbon than with monofilament.
A close second to the Aruku Shad is either a spinnerbait, ChatterBait, or swimbait. Either one of these three choices will get the job done when given a chance.
swimbaits will go through a little thicker cover, where the spinnerbait and ChatterBait option will get the nod in off-colored water conditions due to their increased vibration.
Each bait option has situations where they will excel, use these situations and bait choices to your advantage to maximize your odds in catching late fall bass.
CRANKBAITS FOR LATE FALL BASS FISHING
Crankbaits will give you an option from shallow to deep water.
When the bass hit the shallows, square-billed cranks like the Spro Fat John 60 can get the job done. As the bass move deeper out to the flats, a top-producer for me has been a Spro Rock Crawler 55. The Rock Crawler comes in a ton of different color options and has an unbeatable action that will trigger strikes in cooler water.
As the fall season starts to creep into winter and the bass have made their way towards deeper cover, it is time to tie on either a Spro Fat Papa 70 or a DD Little John. The Fat Papa 70 is a silent bait, and the DD Little John has rattles. There will be days that it will not matter what you throw, but then there will be days that the sound will make all the difference.
One other thing to consider is the line that you are using. Some of this will depend on what cover you are fishing. If targeting weeds, fluorocarbon will be the line of choice. The limited stretch that you get out of fluorocarbon will get your bait deeper and will help you break the bait free and on its way again when hung up on weeds. This will give you more productive casts then loosing ones due to fouled baits. My fluorocarbon line choice is either Sunline Sniper or Reaction FC. Reaction FC has a little bit more stretch built into the line for reaction bite baits like crankbaits.
If wood is the target, then you will be better spooling up with mono. If you get the bait snagged up with mono, the line will help float the bait free from the wood. Sunline Super Natural Monofilament is my mono line of choice.
JIGS FOR LATE FALL BASS FISHING
The last category that I want to cover is jigs. This is what I consider the bread and butter of during the fall. Whenever I get into a tough bite conditions, I turn towards jig and chunk options.
Now to start, there are many thoughts about chunks or pig? I like to keep both on hand as there are days that you cannot beat the old school pig pork option. There is something about the feel of the pork and the fall rate that will make it stand out when needed in cold water conditions.
On the other hand, if the bass are active, I will many times choose to use a plastic chuck as my jig trailer option. I can just hook the chunk towards the end if the bass are active or I can thread the chunk onto the hook to slow the fall rate when the bass are shut down. This will keep the jig in the strike zone longer giving the bass more time to react and bite. The other option I like about the chunk option is that I have more color options to choose from than I have with the the pork choices.
When it comes to using a jig trailer, I use many options and try to match them to the conditions that I am faced with on the water. If I need a small compact jig, I will use a Big Bite YoDaddy craw. This gives me a compact jig with a lot of kicking action with the YoDaddy as my trailer.
If I need a bigger profile or a slower falling jig, I will use a Big Bite YoMama or a Big Bite Fighting Frog trailer. These are both trailers that offer a bigger profile to the jig and have a lot of kicking action when the jig falls.
Now that we have a few different jig profile setups’ it is time to go to work. Try to match the jig to the forage that the bass are targeting.
At this time of the season, it is not uncommon for them to be targeting craws on the rock piles, setting you up a great one-two punch of crankbaits and jigs. Make your first passes over the rocks with your crankbait. The key here is make sure that your crankbait is making contact with the rocks during your retrieve. If you are not making contact with the rocks, you need to make a crankbait change to a deeper diving crankbait.
Once you have taken the active bass with the crankbait, it is time to slow down and fish your jig. Make a cast and let the bait settle to the bottom. There are a couple of retrieve options you can use. You can opt for a slow hop retrieve; or a drag retrieve to trigger strikes. See what option works best for your day on the water.
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