Fall Fishing Will Humble You

[galyonj]

Also be ready for the only thing you catch to be a sunburn, just in case.

[greentrout]

I'll be doing some crappie fishing too.

Good Fishing

[Mobasser]

Fall can be hit or miss. I've had some great days and some bad ones. Either way, I love fishing on overcast fall days. This can improve things at times.

[Bankc]

I think fall fishing is best for kayaks and canoes.  At least for me.  Summer, winter, and spring are all better for big boats.  In a kayak or canoe, you can't easily move several miles down a lake to hit up multiple areas looking for a pattern.  You often have to make a decision and stick with it.  In a big boat with a big motor, you can often explore all of the main lake points, for example, traveling 20-30 miles or so.  But in a kayak or canoe, you're often stuck with one, maybe two points, and knowing that if you strike out on one and decide to try the other, you're going to spend half an hour or more not fishing to make that travel to see if that second option is any different.  

 

But in the fall, you can pick a section of lake and try out everything in that section.  Try some deep water.  Try some shallow water.  Try some stuff in between.  Since the bass can be anywhere, you're not wasting time making long runs looking for similar conditions in a different spot in the lake.  You're able to quickly and easily try different conditions in a similar spot.  Plus, you're looking for baitfish, which ball up and are easy to find on sonar, or sometimes just by looking at surface.  They may not stay in one place long, but they're still easy to find when you lose them.  And often times, I'll just follow that ball of baitfish around, losing it and finding it again and again.  

[Dwight Hottle]

To me the fall repeats the spring bite but in reverse. Rather than try to time it based on the calendar think water temps instead to plan when to hit it the hardest. What temp did the bite start to get good in the spring? Look for the same temp influence in the fall. Most fall fisherman start to early & quit to soon at the end of the season. 

[Catt]

Exactly @Dwight Hottle 

They will also use the same structure when moving. If 10% of the water holds 90% of the fish, I'm pretty certain they use the same structure more than once.

[einscodek]

Really depends on your body of water.  In some waters, the schoolers are chasing baitfish all over the lake and you need to find and follow and thats abit frustrating.  Others they are just alil deeper due to the receding weeds looking for deeper ambush points.  I guarantee you they're there and they're hungry just not as much as summer you just need to find them.

[Swamp Girl]

6 hours ago, GRiver said:

What’s a ditch kit? 

 

It's the things that will hopefully keep me alive if I tip: fire starting stuff, a change of clothing, a reflective blanket, and hand warmers. It floats and is waterproof, so I can tow it behind me as I swim to shore or use it for additional buoyancy. 

 

However, the air was so cool this morning (47 degrees) that the water felt warm. 

[Bankbeater]

Usually what happens in October is that there might be one or two days when I'm on the water and I can catch a bass every other cast.  The rest of the time all I'm doing is practicing casting, and pitching.  If I'm lucky I will catch one or two bass during these slow trips.

[GRiver]

@ol'crickety oh ditch bag got it….. it just clicked, smart…….it’s good to always be prepared.

[VTFan]

I hate fall fishing. Nothing seems to work and it almost seems as though we have to think backwards, reverse our fishing logic...if that makes sense.

[softwateronly]

September is my most challenging open water calendar month.  Structure is practically useless, and bait is seemingly aimlessly roaming.  I look forward to October and the end of the massive weed die off.

 

scott

[Cdn Angler]

This sounds similar to my experience chasing both largies and smallies this fall, though I've overall had better days in term of quality fish. Numbers though? That's another story. 

 

I've had little luck on my usual finesse presentations and little luck with topwater, which are summer go tos. I seem to be catching fish on moving baits, with no specific "pattern" aside from leaving dying grass to go to rock/wood/live grass. Some fish caught deeper, some have been in a few feet of water. It seems to be more the case that there's more dead water than previously - dying grass, docks, lily pads, have all been no bueno, along with usual dead water areas of mud/soft bottom. So I've basically been junk fishing areas that aren't the above, more areas than patterns. Feels like when I first started fishing, which was to just cover water with moving baits. Fun way to fish for me so that's just fine. 

It is nice to have confidence in moving subsurface baits again. In summer here it can get tough. The one constant is that fishing at night is much better. That seems to be a year round thing though.  

 

I think my failures finesse fishing are mainly due to not knowing exactly where fish are, so can't hone in on them. As long as I'm finding decent fish here and there on moving baits though, that's fine. 

 

Seeing as we aren't allowed to bass fish until June 18th, this is probably my favourite time of year to fish. Northerns and Muskie are also on the prowl, so more overall action.