my bass have gone deep

[Turtle135]

Interesting fall phenomena on my two local hydrilla reservoirs. Every fall I keep my eyes open for bass to start stacking up out in 25 - 30 feet of water. I had speculated that what pushed them deep is the grass dying off and burning up the dissolved oxygen, forcing the bait and the bass out of the grass. This year I am not so sure that is a valid theory. The grass started dying back early October (just like normal, due to reduced daylight hours) but this year the water stayed unusually warm. I looked all October but never marked any fish out that deep.

This past weekend I am cutting across the mouth of a big cove and my fish finder lights up in 27 FOW. The water temperature just this week finally dipped down to 58 - 60 degrees. I normally see that water temperature sometime in October. I dropped a lipless crank down to the marks and caught six 2-3 pound largemouth and a couple of large crappie over the next 90 minutes before they stopped biting. There are still some small 12" largemouth in the shallower grass mats. These lakes have no shad so I never see that migration to the creeks. Forage fish in these reservoirs are sunfish, yellow perch, crappie and crayfish.

Now I am wondering if this pattern is more driven by water temperature and the thermocline pushing deeper and deeper as we head towards the fall turnover. Perhaps that newly exposed bottom presents a feeding opportunity for forage baitfish? Anyone else experience a similar fall pattern on their water?

[TnRiver46]

Who cares why they are there if you found them and can catch them!!! Hahaha

[RHuff]

I agree man don’t over analyze it. Just follow the bass and catch them. Six 2-3lbers is a heck of a day in my neck of the woods...

[Turtle135]

My take is that it is an advantage to understand as much about bass and forage behavior as possible. Stay ahead of the bass, the quicker you can find them the better. Plus I am rather fascinated by the science behind the behavior. 

 

[Team9nine]

On 11/6/2017 at 12:10 PM, Turtle135 said:

Now I am wondering if this pattern is more driven by water temperature and the thermocline pushing deeper and deeper as we head towards the fall turnover. Perhaps that newly exposed bottom presents a feeding opportunity for forage baitfish? Anyone else experience a similar fall pattern on their water?

 

I think you're heading in the right direction with your thought process. Every lake is different, and even within lakes, not all fish do the same thing, but fish moving deeper as the thermocline drops is fairly common. Once it is completely gone, there are no longer depth barriers. I know we see this a lot in this area with walleye. Why they are there is usually just a guess, but deep water is the most stable, especially post turnover. There is most likely a food source doing similar allowing them to feed consistently, so you might work that angle a bit more. From what you listed, perch would be my first guess. I don't have hydrilla on my lakes, but bass moving to much more steeper/vertical channel banks at this time is a very common occurrence.

[WRB]

The bass follow the bait sources and yours are mostly pelagic perch and crappie, the sunfish and crawdads are dermasel prey that want to be in cover, in or near the structure of the lake bottom.

Surface water cools below 68 degrees the fall pattern starts, below 55 degrees it's the basses winter and they are seeking warmer water and prey. When the lake turns over isn't predictable by surface water temps alone, it can happen in a cold spell and or high wind event, both common during the fall to winter transition.

Our bass population is mostly down in 25-30 during the early fall transition with a percentage still shallow nearly year around. We have a Shad population and they don't go back into creek arms unless the plankton get blown into those areas, they go deeper and that is why the bass are there.

Tom

[Turtle135]

Just an update. I may have only milked one weekend out of this pattern this year (usually get 3 weeks). Water temperatures dropped like a rock down to 53 degrees. I could still see some sort of forage fish on the Humminbird down in the 25 - 30 foot depths but I was not marking the large predators at all this weekend.

 

Some other details on this pattern. These bass that I catch when this pattern is on are larger than average size fish but they are never the biggest in the system (those bigs come later in the year on a jig when the water is in the mid 40's). When the wind is really howling it makes for some of the fastest action of the year. If you can hold your position and get a lure down to them they do not discriminate on the presentation.

[Paul Roberts]

On 11/12/2017 at 7:28 AM, Turtle135 said:

My take is that it is an advantage to understand as much about bass and forage behavior as possible. Stay ahead of the bass, the quicker you can find them the better. Plus I am rather fascinated by the science behind the behavior. 

 

It can be difficult to know the "why's" behind the behaviors, but they are there. Lots to know out there, the systems are complex, with many interactions. It may be of some solace to know that that fish are dealing with that complexity too. It's not clockwork.