little help please...

[Red]

well as some of you may know, i am new to LMB fihing as of this summer...well i did pretty well i think, thanks to BR!! but now the fall season is approaching and the fishing is starting to not be good anymore....the jig and t-rig was hot for a while...but now it seems nothing is working....i read that this time of year the fish are targeting shad....i have been throwing cranks and traps more often now, but all i can manage is dinks...less than a pound dinks...so....is there something i should be doing to help with the size of fish i am catching? bigger baits, faster? slower? color? location?  i am in central texas, from shore, stock tanks on the golf course and private land..water ranges form clear to murky depending on what tank i am at....cover ranges too from weedbeds to laydowns and brush along the shoreline to no cover...or do i just need to keep chunking and winding?

thanks

Cliff

[A_Glenn_2]

I use to live in dallas not so far from you and come next month fishing will be really good on those sunny cool days keep using alot of top water buzzbaits floating rapalas find the weeds the shad will be in there so will the big boys also in early mornings the strippers will be chasing shad near the banks... thats how they were at ray hubard lake outside of dallas

[johnbr19792003]

Im guessing slowing down would be best. More than likely the bass are suspending and a good lure choice is a susp jerkbait. Try throwing it out and only moving it once a minute or so. This will try your patients but will be worth it in the end. Remember bass will very rarly go down for a bait while there suspended,,  thats why your jigging hasnt been doing the trick.

[MALTESE FALCON]

I agree with the suspending jerkbaits this time of year. When the water is cool they produce well for me.

Falcon

[roadwarrior]

Fall is the time to fish minnow profiles:

Jerkbaits, crankbaits, lipless cranks, swimbaits and blades.

However, during midday, jigs and soft plastics are still productive!

[Trevor in Burke]

DO NOT neglect early morning topwater!!!

[WRB]

If you are fishing ponds and smaller lakes, they more than likely do not have shad. The bait fish like pond smelt, shiners, chubs and young of the year bluegill/crappie (bream), frogs, salamnaders, crawdads, etc all hide in the weed beds. The fall transition starts when the weeds die back and all those creatures must find a new home to survive. Wood, rocks and deeper water become the hiding places and the new location for the bass. Locate the brush, rocky areas near or in deeper water and continue to use down sized soft plastics, crank baits, jigs, jointed Rapala minnows etc.

If shad live in the small body of water, they will die off as the water cools below 50 degrees. Shad eat zoo plankton, not insects or tiny creatures like all the other prey fish. The shad tend to hide in cover only at night and school in open water to eat plankton as the sun light brings it up in the water column. This the reason why the bass target shoreline ambush sites in low light and open water during the fall period, on reservoirs that have shad populations.

WRB