Fall smallmouth fishing - best water temps, depth & techniques?

[shimanoangler]

As we move into the heart of fall smallmouth fishing here in the Northeast, I started to wonder what was the water temperature that smallmouth really get active feeding up for the winter, the depth of water you target these smallmouth and the techniques you use to catch big smallmouth in the fall here in the Northeast.??   I have watched a lot of YouTube content and have read a lot of different publications that talk about the best fall techniques being crankbaits (lipless & squarebill), paddle tail swimbaits, jerkbaits, spinnerbaits, tubes and drop shot.  I can't seem to get bites on anything but a drop shot this time of year and I can't seem to find fish in anything other than 30 ish feet of water.  How about you??

 

I fished pretty hard the last three times out, water temps around 60 degrees, and the only consistent bite I was able to get was in 25 to 30 feet of water on a drop shot.  I was finding schools of baitfish on my graphs, and then I would shut the motor off, drift past the mark on my graph, cast back to the area I believe the school was located and I would catch fish (and some really big fish).  Seemed like any time I got the boat right on top of the fish, or the school of bait fish would swim under the boat, I couldn't get the fish to bite.  But as soon as the school/fish were away from the boat, and I could cast my drop shot 20 yards or so around the boat, I would get bit.

 

I am just interested in what other anglers here in the Northeast are seeing when they hit the water now that air temps and water temps have started to fall and how they approach this time of year to get bites when they hit water chasing smallies.   For us here in Maine, many of the waters around me will be closing down for the season September 30th, and honestly, water levels are so low right now, many boat launches will become unusable if the water levels drop any further.  So I am trying to make the most of what is left of smallmouth fishing season 2020!.  Look forward to hearing what others are seeing/doing.