Bass Fishing…Cooling Water

This is a time of year that a lot of bass anglers look forward to. The reason is because the water has been cooling down for some time now and the water levels on most lakes are dropping to winter pool. This does several things to bass fishing. First the water cooling down will start the bass moving from their deeper summer holes and start moving them up more shallow and this will make the bass more aggressive and in the mood to feed. Also the dropping of the lakes to winter pool will force some of the bass out of the shallower back water areas and out into the main lake areas. What this does is that it will make the bass have to change from one pattern to another.

When I say a pattern I am referring to a holding pattern that the bass will use at this time. A holding pattern that will allow the bass to feed and move around and feel safe to be in this area. This may be in the form of a main lake point or the mouth of a creek or channel, a hump or island, a creek channel edge or bluff wall the edge of a flat with a weed bed or even a roll of flooded timber on a creek channel edge. Any and all of these types of cover have the potential to hold fall bass. You might catch bass on one of these types of cover one day and do better on your next trip on a different one. One thing that will always help you to catch more bass off of a Piece of cover is if it has deeper water close by. Some of these forms of cover will have a channel cut in close by or maybe like a point that has one side that drops off into deeper water . These are the high percentage areas that you will want to concentrate most of your fishing effort on. At this time the water surface temps are in the 72 degree range. So this means that the bass will be fairly active all day and a lot at night.

Some of the bass fishing is being done at night and will be for some time yet. Bass will move up very shallow and will hold tight to the bank at night. A good type of bait to catch these bass is a buzz bait or a noisy top water bait like a chugger or a popper. When fishing close to the bank try to keep your boat close to the bank and make your cast parallel to the bank and work your retrieve down along close to the bank. By doing this you will be doing two things that will greatly increase your chance of hooking a feeding bass. First if the bass are holding close to the bank they are there for a reason , to feed.

So if you make your cast and retrieve parallel to the bank you will be keeping your bait in the fishes strike zone during the entire retrieve. And also by getting in a habit of thinking and fishing like this it will make you start looking at every fishing situation and figuring out the most high percentage way of presenting and retrieving a bait to catch a bass. This is what will set you apart from a good bass fisherman and make you a great bass fisherman.Also look for fall bass on main lake cover. And try baits like big Texas rigged worms and crawdad colored jigs and shallow and deep diving crank baits. So get out and give fall bass fishing a try but the best part is that as the water temps drop on down the bass fishing will get even better.